A crew of local journalists went through a 3 day intensive training on financial reporting last week organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in collaboration with the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL).

The trainers were from Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Minister of Communications, Science and Technology Tšeliso Mokhosi in his opening remarks, highlighted that it is an irrefutable fact that the media in Lesotho has been involved in a lot of issues including politics, "therefore dynamic changes in the media call for analytical reporting of financial issues."

The minister said the training will help the journalists to handle the interviews accurately, saying this will cut across all spheres of life.

The acting governor of CBL Dr. Masilo Makhetha said the training was meant to equip the journalists with economic terms that will help them to report financial issues correctly.

Dr. Makhetha said media as the bridge between the consumers and the CBL has a crucial role to fulfil adding that the public has to know the roles performed by CBL.

He said some of the journalists do not know what the CBL does.

Dr. Makhetha said they have long recognised that there is a need to train media personnel because they are their strategic partners in portraying the image of the bank.

He said it is still a major challenge amongst the journalists to interpret the information and make sense out of it for public consumption.

The CBL intelligentsia amongst other topics, taught the journalists about Financial Markets, Currencies, Monetary Policy Decision and Market Rates.

The Senior Communications Officer of IMF Ismaila Dieng said it is important for journalists to report accurately about IMF as an institution dealing with the stability of the international monetary system.

He said the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries to transact with one another.

Dieng said IMF is critical for promoting sustainable economic growth and reducing poverty, adding that the training would help the journalists to report accurately as they analyse the economy.

The trainer from Reuters Melanie Cheary expressed her gratitude over the performance of the local journalists that she pronounced that it courageous.

Cheary echoed Dieng's words that it is critical if journalists are able to interpret information correctly.

The greater portion of the training was practical and enabled the journalists to make use of economic terms like Gross Domestic Product, Interest Rates, Unemployment and Inflation.

Thabang Matjama from Media Institute of Southern Africa Lesotho who was part of the trainees said the training would bring huge yields in the media fraternity especially in Financial Journalism.

He said the training has been a great eye opener to them soliciting the organisers to keep on holding such trainings for them.