The Informer (Monrovia)
Lewis Verdier, II
1 July 2009
Harper City — The Liberia Agency for Community Empowerment (L A C E) and county authorities have signed a memorandum of understanding for LACE to construct 10 schools and 10 clinics in Maryland and River Gee counties.
Under the MOU, five clinics and five schools will be built in each of the counties at the cost of US$24M.
Giving background of the project during the signing ceremony recently in Harper City (Maryland's capital), the County Supt. Gblebo Browne disclosed that the government of Liberia and the African Development Bank (ADB) entered into a grant agreement last year (2008) in which the Bank would provide to the government about US$24M for infrastructural development.
The grant agreement has three components: the complete rehabilitation of the Harper-Fish Town (capital of River Gee) highway; rehabilitation and construction of basic social service infrastructure (clinics and schools) and the rehabilitations of farm-to-market roads.
Supt. Browne said the first part of the agreement is under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works; the MOU with LACE is the second part of the grant agreement - the construction of basic social service and infrastructure.
LACE has conducted the need assessment and is expected to do the costing expected to be completed soon to determine the amount of resources needed for the mega project.
Many jobless persons will benefit from short-term employments through the implementation of the projects.
These projects, if completed, will become a major boost the government's acclaimed Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) which failed to meet its first-year implementation targets. President Sirleaf recently said the Government was unsuccessful in implementing targets set to be met under the PRS for the first year, though some achievements were made in the education, security and infrastructure sectors.
Liberia's PRS articulates the Government's overall vision and major strategies for moving toward rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth and development during the period 2008-2011.
The PRS is being implemented between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2011 (the end of the 2010/2011 fiscal year).
The donor-dependent US$1.6bn program is crafted with four major pillars including enhancing peace and national security, governance and the rule of law, economic revitalization and rehabilitation of infrastructures and delivery of basic social services (where education and the health sector like the one mentioned above rest).
Statistics from the 2008 National Housing and Population Census puts the poverty rate of Liberia at 68 per cent, meaning, 68 out of every 100 Liberians cannot afford one United States dollar a day. It is believe that the successful implementation of the PRS will improve the living condition of Liberians.
Supt. Browne has meanwhile called on parents and their caregivers to prioritize the education of their kids instead of engaging them into premature activities.
"Let me quickly add that in order to get our children properly educated thereby assuring Liberia's future, the tripartite approach has to be pursued where the Ministry of Education, parents and school administrators will all come together to find solutions to the many problems and challenges facing our educational system," he told this paper after the signing ceremony in Harper, the capital of Maryland.
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