By Grace Q. Bryant
Montserrado County District 4 Representative, Michael M. Thomas, has communicated to the House of Representatives, seeking its intervention in closing the Whein’s Town dump site and relocating same to Cheesemanburg, in order to curb potential health hazards in the area.
The Montserrado County lawmaker told his colleagues in open session on Tuesday, January 29, that his communication is based on the unfortunate sanitary circumstances that residents of Whein Town Community in his district are encountering.
“Hon Speaker, there have been repeated communications previously submitted to the 54th National Legislature and the slow response of the national government to remedy the health challenges faced by the residents of Whein Town Community and its immediate surrounding as it relates to the waste management project undertaken by government in 2012, which was completed and operated temporarily for the length of over five years, and has now metamorphosed into a national dump site, thereby posing serious health challenges as well as other sanitary conditions to residents of the affected community,” he expressed.
In his communication, he averred, “The Cheesemanburg Landfill Transitory Disposal Site, which was established by the World Bank through the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) at the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC), has operated void of considering its social corporate responsibility, leaving residents of the community in health destitution with the contamination of all the underground waters and the annual fire outbreak in Whein Town and its immediate surroundings for over ten years.”
He told his colleagues that, “It will interest you to note that globally, solid waste can be utilized for the production of gasoline, plastic tiles, organic fertilizer, electricity, and fuel for bio gas.”
The Montserrado District 4 lawmaker noted that unfortunately, the presence of the project has become hazardous and has imposed damaging health conditions on the livelihood of over 30,000 inhabitants of Whein Town Community and its immediate surroundings.
He averred, “As a functionality of our cardinal responsibility, we seek the indulgence of plenary for the immediate closure of the Whein Town Transitory Disposal Site and the transfer of the solid Waste from the Whein town Solid Waste to the Cheesemanburg landfill site, whilst we also request the immediate medical and environmental intervention by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the restoration of surface pipe-borne water by the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC).”
He added, “Honorable Speaker, Honorable Deputy Speaker, and Distinguished colleagues, it is our aspiration that plenary takes immediate action so as to curb a potential foreseeable health epidemic in our district and country at large.”
Following the reading of the communication, a motion was made by Representative Ivar Jones of Margibi County District 2 to forward the letter to the following committees; Mines, Energy Natural Resources & Environment, Health and Internal Affairs, to probe the claims and report back to Plenary for legislative action.
