Liberia: Flood makes Thousands Homeless
By Augustine N. Myers – Continuous heavy rainfall across Liberia due to the on-going rainy season, is indeed becoming a serious problem, especially to those residing around low land areas.
The latest is the GSA Road Community in Paynesville, a sub burg of Monrovia in Montserrado County.
Thousands of the residents are forced to leave their respective homes for safety because of the heavy down pour of rain, due to an on-going local road construction by a Company known as SSF.
The Company was hired by the Liberian government through the Public Works Ministry to carry out the pavement of the GSA Road.
But it appears that the pavement of the long time dusty road is doing more harm than good, as most of the GSA Road Community residents in Paynesville are now homeless, and are blaming the Liberian government for not doing much to improve their welfare.
The residents blamed the Government for awarding the contract to the SSF, which has on the other hand reportedly engaged into a cheap pavement work.
The residents described as substandard, the road construction work by the SSF, because according to them, the drainages on both sides of the road are not properly dug, and that the culverts are not professionally placed, thereby resulting to flood whenever it rains.
This is the second time in less than a week that residents of GSA Road Community in Paynesville have experienced such disaster.
Some of the residents complained that they have lived in the community for decades and never experienced such flooding, refusing to attribute the situation to climate change.
The GSA Road Community residents challenged the Government to revisit the contract, to ensure that the unbearable situation is urgently addressed.
The residents want the re-digging of both drainages and replacement of the culverts.
The Liberian government through the Public Works Ministry, and the Construction Company SSF have meanwhile taken exception to the GSA Road Community residents that they are responsible for the flooding.
The Ministry and Company blamed the situation on what they call climate change, which they said have resulted to the continuous flooding of the GSA Road Community whenever it rains.
Public Works and SSF have meanwhile expressed regrets for the embarrassing situation, and promised the GSA Road Community residents that all will be done to address the problem.
