PHOTO: A Legislative janitorial staffer fetching water from a manhole to clean filthy restrooms at the Capitol
By M. Neywon Mengonfia- mmenginfia@gmail.com
CAPITOL HILL, Monrovia- It is taking the big ceremony marking President George Weah’s State of the Nation Address slated for Monday, January 25, 2021 to trigger action to clean the filthy restrooms and piles of garbage at the seat of Legislature.
The poor state of the restrooms that have greeted visitors with foul order and poor upkeep of the facilities have been subject of radio talk shows and media reports for the past year.
But now, days before the SONA, a massive cleanup campaign is ongoing at the first branch of government to give the compound a facelift in a long time. All this has been happening in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.
In keeping with article 58 of the 1986 constitution of Liberia which mandates the President of Liberia to on every fourth working Monday address the Legislature, the President shall give his address next Monday, January 25, 2021.
In preparation of this constitutionally provision, the Ministry of Public Works has also worked on major pot holes at the entrance and driveway to the Building, and at the same time begun the removal of garbage and other waste at that first branch of government.
Piles of rubbish being removed
For many months now, this official compound has been filthy, as bathrooms have been surprisingly in deplorable sanitary condition.
Not only the filth at the building an issue, the lack of running water at the Liberian Legislature is one of the key issues affecting the sanitary condition of the area. The top ranking officials in this branch of government have to date not been able to secure poly tanks to pump water to the restrooms, leaving low paying cleaners to fetch water up and down in plastic containers.
Things have become so bad and have reached a point that lawmakers who want to use the bathrooms have to get water from outside in their private vehicles, while workers at that building get water from the manholes to be used in the bathrooms in various offices. In many cases, bathrooms are left without water and commodes left unflushed many times.
Another serious problem at the Capitol Building is the constant outages of power during regular sessions.
But all of these many problems facing the legislature are now being covered up by GSA and Ministry Public Works as the Legislative body awaits their guests on Monday–next week.
House of Representatives Chairperson on Executive is Acarcus Moses Gray, Montserrado County District #8 Representative, who replaces the late Representative Munah P. Youngblood who chaired that committee before her death.
The Committee should work closely with the Executive to ensure that the program (SONA) and she made her work known to Liberian weeks before the official program.
Representative Youngblood is no longer on the stage of making preparations for the SONA, but her former Deputy, Moses Acarious Gray now chairs the Committee on executive.
But he is yet to officially speak to the level of preparation he and his deputy, Mary Karwor have made for the program to be successful.
Members of that House of Representatives were forced to executive on Tuesday, January 21, 2021 to get an update from the Committee.
After hours of locked up discussion with the Chairperson, deputy on executive and Finance Minister, Samuel Tweah, members of the House of Representatives left without any information to the media.