Monrovia, Liberia: The World Bank financed Liberia Urban Resilience Project, a project managed by the Ministry of Public Works, on today, donated assorted drainage cleaning tools such as shovels, heavy duty wheelbarrows, Cutlasses, Rakes, Hand Diggers, Hand Gloves, & Steel-toed Rain Boots to fourty-four Communities.
The tools were donated to leaders representing communities in Greater Monrovia, Bushrod Island, & Southern Paynesville. The donation, which was made by the Acting Minister Jocelia Taplah, is said to be essential to sustaining drainage cleaning programs in these flood affected communities.
Acting Minister Taplah cautioned community leaders to apply the highest standard of honesty in the management of the assorted tools, as she placed the total cost of donated materials at seventy thousand ($70,000) United States Dollars. "Although the Ministry of Public Works has decided to make some interventions, it is important to stress that most of these natural disasters are either caused by our poor handling of waste management or improper development planning, where people built houses in areas they were not to build. It is my honest plea that we henceforth work with Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to enhance proper waste collection and disposal, order than giving our wastes to disadvantaged youth that often dumb them in the drainages, which results to flooding, she remarked ". Acting Minister Jocelia Taplah concluded by thanking the World Bank for its support towards Liberia, as well as the Management Team of the Liberia Urban Resilience Project for its steadfastness in sticking to the project mandates.
Building on the Acting Minister's comment the Project Manager of the Liberia Urban Resilience Project, Gabriel Flabboe, warned the community leaders not to take personal possession of the donated tools, adding that they are not theirs, but the Communities'. He, however, informed them that the Project Management Unit will quarterly visit these communities to take inventory of materials they have received. Mr. Flabboe committed the LURP to giving more support, but intimated that such will be wholly contingent on how the previous donations are managed.
