The NEWS (Monrovia)
Robbie Sample
17 April 2008
Monrovia — Unidentified non-governmental organizations have been implicated in stealing gravel from refurbished roads in the country.
The accusation was made Wednesday at a United Nations Mission press conference in Monrovia. The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said it has contacted all implicated organizations but would not name them at this time.
Colonel Mohammed Siddiqur Rahmed, UNMIL's Chief Force Engineer highlighted that local NGOs appeared to be complicit in the theft. The Colonel himself observed a vehicle belonging to one such NGO collecting gravel.
It was also disclosed that in a separate incident, locals collecting gravel along the Zorzor-Voinjama road informed UN officials that they had been mobilized by community leaders to collect laterite for the construction of a school being built by an NGO.
Laterite is crucial for the survival of roads during the rainy season. In a country that sees 200 inches of rain a year, roads can be washed away in a matter of months. "Laterite pebbles stabilize roads and enable them to survive two to three rainy seasons", Liberia's Deputy Minister of Public Works Togba Nganga pointed out.
Nganga vowed the government would "ratchet one step higher" action against anyone stealing gravel from Liberia's refurbished roads.
Addressing the issue of road vandalism, the Deputy Minister revealed that in an effort to solve the problem at a local level, nobody has been prosecuted for the crime to date.
The ongoing nature of this situation has led the government to take its actions to the next level, warning citizens in a press release that: "Liberia National Police will arrest and prosecute anyone found removing gravel or other materials from public works project sites."
Doris Kleffner, head of Reintegration, Rehabilitation and Recovery (RRR) section of UNMIL labeled the behavior "unscrupulous and selfish."
"If laterite or gravel is removed, roads will deteriorate rapidly and become inaccessible. This affects both the communities and the national economy. How is it possible that in our joint efforts to improve the infrastructure in this country, one hand is building while the other hand is destroying?" Kleffner asked.
Kleffner called on locals engaged in profiteering activities surrounding the theft of gravel to seek employment instead in road construction projects.
The UN currently faces a labor shortage on a number of its construction projects and has been forced to bring in workers from other provinces to refurbish a number of roads.
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