Most people treat environmental approval as something that runs alongside a licence application. In Lesotho that is the wrong way round, and the Environment Act 2008 says so in one sentence.
Section 25(4) provides that no licensing authority appointed under any other law may issue a licence or permit for a project or activity for which an environmental impact assessment may be required, unless the application is accompanied by an environmental impact assessment licence, or the Director has certified in writing that an assessment is not required.
Read that again in commercial terms. Your mining lease, your fuel storage licence, your manufacturing licence: none of them can be issued until the environmental question has been answered, one way or the other. It is why section 33(g) of the Mines and Minerals Act 2005 makes an environmental licence a precondition of a mining lease, and it is why a project that leaves environmental work until the end does not get delayed by a few weeks, it stalls.
Insika identifies whether your project falls inside the regime, coordinates the practitioners who do the assessment, and manages the process through to a record of decision.
Who issues the licence, and what the Act forbids without one
Environmental impact assessment licences are issued by the Director of the Department of Environment, in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The department was previously the National Environment Secretariat, and older documents still use that name.
The department runs eight divisions, of which Environmental Impact Assessment is one. The others are Information and Data Management, Environmental Planning, Biodiversity Conservation, Pollution Control, Programmes and International Liaisons, Education and Outreach, and Biosafety. Its services include advising developers on which projects need an assessment, issuing environmental clearance, monitoring projects for compliance, pollution inspections, wildlife permits, and facilitating hazardous waste disposal.
Section 25(1) is blunt: no person shall operate, execute or carry out a project or activity specified in the First Schedule without an environmental impact assessment licence issued by the Director.
Contravening that is an offence. On conviction the penalty is a fine of not less than M5 000, or imprisonment for not less than two years, or both (section 25(7)). Those are minimums, not maximums.
Does your project fall inside the First Schedule?
The First Schedule to the Act lists the types of project and activity that require an assessment. It is broad, and most regulated business activity in Lesotho touches it somewhere. The categories in Part A include:
- General. Any activity out of character with its surroundings, any structure of a scale not in keeping with its surroundings, and major changes in land use.
- Urban and rural development. New urban areas, industrial estates, rezoning, shopping centres and complexes, hotels and tourist facilities, declaration of development areas, and buildings with a total floor space of 500 square metres or more.
- Transportation. Major roads, all roads in scenic, wooded or mountainous areas, airports and airfields, pipelines, bridges, railways, cable ways and public transport interchanges.
- Dams, rivers and water resources. Reservoirs, storage dams, weirs, flood control schemes, canals, river diversions, water transfers, water reticulation, and projects affecting groundwater, springs and wells.
- Mining and mineral extraction, including quarrying and open-cast. Precious stones, minerals and metals, diamonds, coal, aggregates, sand and gravel, stone and slate, clay, limestone and dolomite, base metals, and tunnelling.
- Forestry and agriculture. Forest clearance, deforestation and afforestation, timber harvesting, large scale agriculture, agro-chemicals, feedlots, genetic modification and large scale land reclamation.
- Processing and manufacturing. Brick and earthenware, explosives, abattoirs, tanning, brewing and malting, food and grain processing, smelting and refining, foundries, textiles, motor assembly, industries producing or using hazardous substances, industries handling effluent or emitting major pollutants, and industrial installations for the bulk storage of fuel.
- Energy and electric infrastructure. Generation stations, transmission lines, substations and cable ways.
- Waste handling, storage, transport, treatment and disposal. Solid waste and hazardous waste sites, wastewater and sewerage treatment, industrial effluent, major atmospheric emissions, transport and storage of hazardous substances, and recycling plants.
- National conservation areas. National parks, game reserves, commercial exploitation of natural fauna and flora and natural heritage sites.
Two entries deserve singling out because they catch people by surprise. Bulk fuel storage is expressly listed, which settles the question for any petroleum depot or filling station project. And a building of 500 square metres or more brings a great deal of ordinary commercial and infrastructure development inside the regime.
The list is not fixed: under section 19(4) the Minister may amend the First Schedule by notice published in the Gazette. That is a reason to confirm the current Schedule for your project rather than relying on a copy of the Act, including this page.
The process, from project brief to record of decision
The Act sets out the sequence. What it does not set out is how long each stage takes in practice, which depends on the project, the specialists and the review load at the department.
- Screening
Establish whether the project sits in the First Schedule at all, and if so whether it is a Part A activity. Getting a written answer here is worth more than any other early step, because it determines whether you need a licence or a certificate that none is required.
- Project brief
For a Part A project the developer submits a project brief, before commencing the project, to the Director and the relevant Line Ministry (section 20). Note that it goes to both, and that the Line Ministry is the one that regulates your sector.
- Scoping and terms of reference
Agreeing what the assessment must cover, so the study answers the questions the Director will actually ask.
- The assessment and specialist studies
Carried out by appropriately qualified environmental practitioners, with the specialist inputs the project requires.
- Environmental impact statement
The report submitted to the Director. The licence follows only if the Director is satisfied the statement is adequate (section 25(2)).
- Decision and record of decision
The Director issues a licence, on terms and conditions appropriate to sustainable development, or refuses. Either way a record of decision is issued.
- Onward licence applications
Only now can the sector licence application proceed with the environmental licence attached, as section 25(4) requires.
- Compliance, monitoring and conditions
The licence carries conditions, and the department monitors projects for compliance.
The record of decision, and your right to challenge it
Whether the Director issues or refuses a licence, section 25(3) requires a record of decision, and it must contain:
- The decision itself.
- The key factors behind it, including responses to material issues raised by any person during the assessment process.
- The date of the decision.
- A copy of the licence, if one was issued.
- Information on the right to seek reconsideration, and how to seek it.
That second point matters commercially. Objections raised during the process must be answered on the record, so how a project handles public and neighbouring interests during the assessment shows up in the decision document.
If you are aggrieved by the decision, section 25(5) gives you 30 days from being informed of it to request in writing, with reasons, that the Director reconsider. Under section 25(6) the Director must issue a decision affirming, modifying or reversing the earlier one within 30 days of receiving that request, and that decision becomes part of the record of decision.
A refusal is therefore not necessarily the end of a project, but the 30 day window is short and the request has to set out reasons. This is the point at which projects most often need help quickly.
After the licence: changes, cancellation and transfer
An environmental impact assessment licence is not a document you file away.
Changing the project. Under section 26(1) the Director may direct the holder to submit a fresh environmental impact statement where there is a substantial change or modification in the project or in how it is operated, or where the project poses an environmental threat that could not reasonably have been foreseen. Failing to comply is an offence carrying the same minimum penalties, and the licence is cancelled (section 26(2)).
Selling or transferring the project. Section 27 allows transfer, but only in respect of the project the licence was issued for. Both parties must jointly notify the Director in writing within 30 days, and the transfer is only effective from the date the Director is notified. Where no joint notification is given, the original holder remains treated as the person in charge of the project. Transferring outside these rules is an offence.
For anyone buying a licensed project in Lesotho, that makes the joint notification a completion item, not an afterthought. Until the Director is notified, the seller still carries the exposure and the buyer does not have the benefit.
Where the published record stops
The Act sets the process, the offences and the reconsideration timelines. It does not publish an application fee, and the Department of Environment does not publish a current fee schedule or a service standard for how long a decision takes.
So this page does not quote you either. What we do is establish, for your specific project, whether the First Schedule applies, what the department currently requires, and what a realistic programme looks like given the specialists your project needs. Insika professional fees are quoted per project once that scope is clear.
What Insika does on an environmental process
Insika is not an environmental assessment practitioner and does not sign off assessments. We coordinate the process and the specialists, and we manage it against the rest of the project.
- Screening. Establishing early whether the First Schedule applies, and pursuing a written answer either way.
- Sequencing. Placing the environmental process where section 25(4) requires it to be: before the sector licence, not beside it.
- Practitioner coordination. Appointing and managing appropriately qualified environmental practitioners and specialist consultants.
- Project brief preparation. To the Director and the relevant Line Ministry.
- Process management. Tracking the submission through to a record of decision, and keeping the rest of the project moving around it.
- Conditions and compliance. Turning licence conditions into an operating checklist rather than a document nobody reads.
- Transfers. The joint notification within 30 days when a licensed project changes hands.
Official sources
This guide is based on the current rules published by the relevant Lesotho authorities. Always confirm the latest fees and requirements with the office that applies to you.