US President Donald Trump may hold the reins of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, but the fate of Lesotho's export industry is in the hands of the mountain kingdom's politicians. Lesotho's eligibility to remain exempt from duties on exports to the US under the act is under a cloud because it has failed to implement many of the reforms recommended by the Southern African Development Community's commission of inquiry into the August 2014 coup that forced the country's prime minister into exile. The US has made Lesotho's eligibility contingent on the implementation of the reforms, which involve structural and systemic changes in the defence sector and government. But work on implementing the reforms has stalled since the suspension of Lesotho's parliament in the wake of prime minister Pakalitha Mosilili losing a vote of no confidence against him in early March and the subsequent call for an early election, which has been scheduled for June 3. One of the few SADC recommendations t...
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