This article was first published in the Liberian Dialogue newspaper in March 2013 by Tamba D. Aghailas | March 16, 2022
MONROVIA, LIBERIA: – In commemoration of Liberia's first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts anniversary and holiday, the United States Ambassador to Liberia, Michael A. McCarthy, in an Op-Ed titled, "What would JJ Roberts have to say about Liberia today?," issued a scathing rebuke of the current Liberian Government, under President George Weah on its inability to steer the affairs of the nation. He called the government out on corruption, the mismanagement funds including the American taxpayers' aid dollars, and the outright abandonment of the capitol city, Monrovia, as it relates to health and sanitation. Read full Op-Ed here.
The below article, first published on March 20, 2013, is a testament of our advocacy for socioeconomic rights for the people of Liberia. We welcome the ambassador's op-ed and call on the American Government to exert more pressure on the Liberian Government on accountability, ending the culture of impunity, and on human rights.
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Background Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia was named after United States of America’s fifth President, James Monroe. A city that was envisioned at the onset of the settlers’ arrival in their new found nation, Liberia, in the 1800s. The new nation declared independence in 1847 with a promise of freedom, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness; a dream slaves and former slaves could never aspire to while they were in captivity. The city was initially designed to inhabit ten thousand persons; today, the population is close to two million and counting.
Since the end of country’s civil war in 2003, Liberia’s development partners and government have been working tirelessly, albeit incessant government corruption, to meet the many challenges facing the population. Pipe borne water, public infrastructure, electricity supply, and transportation networks remain in poor conditions. City roads recently built with taxpayers’ money with assistance from international partners have outlived their usefulness within less than five years and fallen in disrepair; some are nonetheless being rebuilt. Many parts of Monrovia, especially where the more than 90% live, seem like a city that was never built.
Rush hour traffic on Tubman Boulevard, Monrovia.
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"Monrovia being the largest populated city, its health systems does not enjoy the confidence of its citizens. In fact the health system is in such a bad state that Liberia’s elite – the rich and high power government officials – are flown out of the country to Accra, Europe, or the United States for medical care."
In the above photo (taken around December 2020), sellers and buyers in the Red Light Market in Paynesville, Monrovia, navigate their way through piles of garbage. (photo credit: Tamba Aghailas).
Some of the major needs of citizens in Monrovia can be summed in the following:
Water and Sanitation – women and children’s burden Donor agencies have mostly based their analysis and research of Liberia to the last twenty years and have mostly blamed damaged infrastructure on looting and vandalism during the civil unrest. However, Monrovia has always been a city without a long term urban plan.
Water and sanitation has gotten so bad that hundreds of thousands of residents in midtown Monrovia depend entirely on mobile trucks selling water and hand-dug water wells for their daily survival. Today, families are forced to use their meager resources to purchase drinking water on a daily basis. This in turn affects their pocket books thereby perpetrating poverty.
The United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID) in its Water and Sanitation profile of Liberia acknowledges that “all sewer systems have broken down” in and around Monrovia and “rural areas remain devoid of any functional facilities while the urban areas have fallen into complete disrepair” (source: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADO932.pdf). The situation had created untold suffering mostly on women and children, who bear the brunt of the responsibility to fetch water for their families.
What the city needs is a fast track development strategy and implementation plan that will make accessible water and sanitation infrastructure that is capable of catering to two million or more residents. Hand pumps and water wells are outdated and can longer meet the needs of millions of people living in the city.
Transportation network – a nightmare for everyone Every major city has a rush hour and rush hours create traffic jams, chaos, and frustration for residents. Rush hour in Monrovia is not only chaotic; it is a nightmare for pedestrians, motorists, and school children. This is due in part to the lack of vision – poor urban planning and design of the city by our predecessors. They thought – this was a small city and there were not many of them, so they built the city for ten thousand inhabitants with streets so narrow that cars, motorbikes and pedestrians juggle on a daily basis to navigate the nightmare congestion that Monrovia has become.
The narrow streets have also been an embarrassment and headache for the ruling Unity Party of the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Recently when the Liberian Government hosted the UN High Level Panel meeting on the Millennium Development Challenges on January 29, 2013, the government instructed the traffic control unit of the Liberian National Police (LNP) to restrict access to citizens’ use of the Robertsfield – Monrovia and Tubman Boulevard roads. Liberian citizens were unable to freely drive around Monrovia during that all important conference. This is not only a civil rights issue, but a human rights issue that needs to be raised.
SKD Boulevard was paved with taxpayers’ money just a few years into President’s Sirleaf first term. That road in recent times became completely dilapidated. It is currently undergoing a major facelift and reconstruction. Let’s hope that this time around, it is not a “campaign project” that only attempts to quell citizens’ anxiety by building a road that does not last for more than two years. Other roads (for example, Duport Road, Point Four, Somalia Drive, etc.) around Monrovia suffered similar fates due to government corruption and mismanagement of funds intended for road construction.
What Monrovia needs is to speed-up the construction and rehabilitation of major roads connection the different boroughs of the city. Somalia Drive, Robertsfield Hgwy, SKD Boulevard, Duport Road, Point Four Road, UN Drive, etc, all need to be expanded to four lanes (if not six lanes). The expansion and rebuilding of these roads must be done with a vision of fifty to hundred years of longevity, not five years.
In addition to good roads that will last for generations to come, Monrovia’s motorists and drivers need to be regulated, trained and empowered so as to protect citizens, especially school children who are at the mercy of the so called “suicide bomber” motor cycle riders.
Electricity supply – from 150 days to eight years of waiting For residents of Monrovia, electricity is a luxury that many cannot afford. The price of gasoline is almost five U.S. dollars. An ordinary Liberian family lives on less than two dollars a day. At night, some main streets are lit with the few light poles that the government currently boasts. Bar houses and hotels are lit using private generators. Once you leave the vicinities of Congo Town, Sinkor, areas and areas around the seat of government in downtown Monrovia, the city is dark and insecure.
When President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in for her first term in January 2006, Monrovia had been without viable power supply for more than 16 years. The newly elected Johnson Sirleaf vowed to restore electricity and other services to Monrovia swiftly. In her speech on January 16, Sirleaf said, one of the "key objectives and deliverables in the first 150 days of our administration is the restoration of electricity to Monrovia."
Eight years later, Monrovia still lingers in the dark. As much as Liberians appreciate the relative peace they current enjoy, life in Monrovia without electricity and other basic services is hampering wealth creation initiatives and is affecting the quality of life of millions of Liberians. Something must be done to reverse this trend and to save lives.
The health system – millionaires travel abroad Monrovia being the largest populated city, its health systems does not enjoy the confidence of its citizens. In fact the health system is in such a bad state that Liberia’s elite – the rich and high power government officials – are flown out of the country to Accra, Europe, or the United States for medical care. The most recent example of that of Finance Minister, Amara Konneh, who was flown to Accra, then to the United States to treat exhaustion and a migraine.
As for ordinary Liberians, they remain at the mercy of a health system that is archaic and many of its doctors and nurses struggle to cope with the high demand for medical care.
If the government is serious about providing equity and fairness to its citizens, ordinary Liberians must have access to the same quality care that it leaders and elites receive abroad when they are flown out of the country for no Liberian is lesser of a person than the elites.
The city is broken, dilapidated, outdated, and it seems as though Monrovia was never built. As I walk and drive through the streets of Monrovia, I long for a day that citizens of this great nation can proudly proclaim their City, Monrovia as a modern and contemporary capital that we all can be proud of.
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The author is and advocate and the founder of The Voice of Liberia. He has written extensively on his country recent history and continues to advocate for the socioeconomic development of his nation.
He can be reached via email: aghails@yahoo.com, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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In his recent book, “In Pursuit of Liberty: A Refugee’s Chronicles of Triumph,” he chronicles his amazing journey of trials and triumph over adversity. It is a true story of survival with its moments of joy, heroism, sadness and hope.
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