The Honourable Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Honourable Tim Thahane has announced that His Majesty King Letsie III, in accordance with the advice of the Right Honourable the Prime Minister, has appointed Dr. Moeketsi Senaoana as Governor of the Central Bank of Lesotho.  Dr. Senaoana takes over from Mr. Motlatsi Matekane whose contract expired in September 2006.  In a related development, Dr. Rets’elisitsoe Matlanyane, who was hitherto, the Second Deputy Governor, has been elevated to the level of Deputy Governor I.

Dr. Senaoana was appointed Deputy Governor I in April 2006, and acted as Governor of the Bank since September 2006 following the departure of the former incumbent.  He is a macroeconomist of over 20 years of experience who has worked mostly in the SADC region, specialising in macroeconomic theory and policy in developing countries.  His professional experience, as well as educational background, have together made him exceptionally well versed in the region’s economic issues.  He has a wide range of experience that includes being a senior lecturer in economics at the National University of Lesotho, Minister of Finance and Development Planning for Lesotho, and Senior Finance and Investment Policy Adviser for the SADC.

Dr. Matlanyane was appointed Deputy Governor II in April 2006.  Incidentally, she is the first woman in Lesotho to become a Deputy Governor.  Her sphere of responsibility within the Bank is Research, Financial Markets, and Operations. She has published and presented a number of papers in the area of economic development, both in Lesotho and other parts of the world.  She graduated from the National University of Lesotho, with a BA Economics degree.  She obtained her MA Economics at the University of Botswana, where she specialised in monetary economics and international economics.  She further attained PhD, Economics, specialising in macro econometric and economy wide modelling from the University of Pretoria, South-Africa.  She has held teaching positions at the Universities of Botswana and Pretoria. She has also participated in a number of projects, some of which she led, that focused on wide ranging issues of economics. She joined the Bank after teaching at the National University of Lesotho from 1994 until 2006.

Public Relations Division - 2007 May, 04