Welcome To Duport Road Junction @ 5:45Pm, February 29, 2024
Writes Frank Sainworla, Jr., fsainworla@yahoo.com
Liberians are noted for kicking off good and positive initiatives but are poor on staying the course. Ahead of the inauguration of Liberia’s 26th President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and his Vice President Jeremiah Kpaan Koung, the momentum for cleaning up Monrovia, Paynesville and other parts of the country was high and organizers vowed that they will carry on.
But a tour of the Liberian capital, Monrovia and the Paynesville suburb by this writer tells a different reality. Now in its second month, there appears no semblance of that. Everything points to the usual Liberian posture of concentrating on “form, not substance”.
Many are wondering where has the clean up campaign momentum gone? When one gets down from a vehicle, just a walk past the large area that once used to be a par, the stench from the garbage can tell you what the petty traders selling nearby endure on a daily basis on the newly constructed four-lane road.
Welcome to the newly constructed road leading to the Redlight the deep water well
Go to the nooks and corners of central Monrovia, go to the Johnson Street Bridge near the Slippway Field down to the history Providence Island, the Waterside corridor and just name the areas where filth remains concentrated with no activity seen whatsoever.
Central Monrovia Johnson Street, Gabriel Tucker Bridge
As one opposition political said, “we are not feeling the momentum initially started.”
“You can be sure that Liberia is headed in a different direction,” said then President-elect and now President Boakai said during the launch of the cleanup exercise prior to the January 22, 2024 inauguration.