A sanitation group in Monrovia has begun the cleaning up of key government facilities ahead of the inauguration ceremony of President-elect, Joseph N. Boakai and Vice president-elect, Jeremiah K. Koung, which is slated for January 22, 2024.
According to the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Siescott Group, the exercise, which is intended to give the facilities a facelift, is his company’s way of joining hundreds of Liberians who are volunteering their services to clean Monrovia and its environs ahead of the inauguration in 2024.
“I am grateful to Madam Mary Broh for allowing me to contribute to the cleaning up exercise of the city and parts adjacent. I have been assigned to the Capitol Building, the Executive Mansion, the Ministerial Complex in Congo, and the SKD in Paynesville,” Scott said.
“For now, I am responsible to transport equipment and personnel, and as well provide feeding for the team in the field,” he noted.
Scott informed this paper that the cleaning up exercise at the Capitol Building began on Friday of last week and is expected to be completed by mid-week before continuing their activities at the Executive Mansion.
He noted that his involvement in the cleaning up exercise is not to seek jobs from the incoming government, but to ensure that the city and parts adjacent are clean before and after the inauguration in 2024.
“I am not in this because I want a job from the government. I am in this because I feel it is a call to national duty. It is a call that all Liberians should embrace. This is why I am here,” Scott observed.
Meanwhile, some staffers at the Capitol Building have appreciated the Siescott Group for helping to clean up the compound of the seat of Liberia’s first branch of government. According to them, the group is the first to have carried out a massive cleaning of the compound and pray that other WASH entities in the country could follow suit.
“I thank them for the work. The grass was almost entering the building, especially from the senate side. But they came and in less than two days, the entire compound is clean,” Madam Josephine Toh said.
For his part, Alex Kiazulu, the Chief of Office Staff to one of the incoming lawmakers, said cleaning up the Capitol should not be left to the maintenance department of the Legislature, saying, “Portion of the job should be outsourced to other companies for the effective maintenance of the building and its surrounding. When this is done, this place will always look decent and have the face of structure that houses the first branch of government.”
Maintaining the Capitol Building has always been a challenge to the maintenance department, as overly grown grass is always in the compound, especially the front which faces the Executive Mansion.
The intervention of the Siescott Group at the Legislature has given the place a much-needed facelift, provided the maintenance departments of both houses keep the sparkling look of the place after the inauguration, as they have complained about the lack of equipment to maintain them.
“We have over 100 workers in the maintenance department, but there are no funds to purchase the necessary equipment for the job,” an employee of the department, who preferred anonymity, said.
“Can you imagine that in this age and time, they still want experts to use cutlasses and hoes to clean this place? How much will you achieve for a day? See these people, just in two days they were able to clean the entire House of Senate wing and huge portion of the House of Representatives. But each time we request for money to buy equipment, they always say no, ‘the budget has not passed’ but expert us to do the magic,” he said.
Scott is a WASH expert who has worked in many countries, including Ukraine, Haiti, the Bahamas, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, among others, in water, sanitation, and health sectors, and has met key deliverables in that area.
The Siescott Group is a registered WASH entity with the government of Liberia that is involved in water and sanitation promotion, construction of WASH facilities, including the construction of water toilet facilities, garbage collection and disposal, landscaping, among others.
