Liberia News: Rep. Thomas Begins Road Rehabilitation

By Mark N. Mengonfia

Montserrado County electoral number four representative, Michael Thomas has begun rehabilitation of roads in his district.

Members of that august body have gone for their legislative break and while on their constituency break, lawmakers are undertaking projects.

As for Rep. Thomas, he said road rehabilitation in his district is one of his key priorities.

Speaking at the start of the road rehabilitation process, Atty. Thomas said, “Whilst on recess, we thought to make every minute, every second, every hour and every day of our recess count.”

By that, the lawmaker said he started his legislative recess with reconciliation meetings with community chairpersons and have also successfully conducted seven communities’ leadership elections.

Speaking about road rehabilitation, the lawmaker House’s committee chairs on Judiciary said the

Sharah road which has been very deplorable was his first target for the road rehabilitation process.

“So, we are here today by virtue of our own commandment to the community during the elections that we were going to make this impact to enhance their own operations and make their road pliable so as you can see, the machine is here, our own motograder is on the road.”

According to him, since the road is bad, they were dumping around 25 to 30 loads of crush rock and rock dust to give it that kind of durability to withstand the rainy days ahead. “My plan for this road is to have a concrete pavement for this road” Atty. Thomas said.

He said the road rehabilitation process targets all of the communities in his district but was quick to say that being that the rainy season is already ongoing, only those places with major problems will be focused on for now until the dry season when a serious road work will be done in the district since they have already procured their own motograder.

He said District four project team is making assessments in the communities and spotting those places with challenges.

When he was asked if they (Lawmakers) were not usurping the functions of other ministers and agencies, the Rep. Thomas said that policy that says lawmakers work are not to build roads, hospitals, clinics and other basic social services only work in developed countries and not Liberia.

“It is in the spirit of coordination because what we are basically doing is enhancing and buttressing the efforts of Government” he intoned.

The district lawmaker said, “Government will not be everywhere at every time and beside that, the fiscal envelop of our country is not too huge to handle  most of the stuff. So, we as lawmakers, we fix-in in some of those areas.”

According to him, what he is doing in the community is not done in isolation of the Minister of Public Works, the community leadership and other key stakeholders.