By Grace Q. Bryant
Several contracting firms hired by the Liberia Agency for Community Empowerment (LACE), to implement the “Special Presidential County Tour Project, have begun the process of filing an exhaustive and comprehensive lawsuit against LACE over its alleged failure of payment for contracts already executed.
Mr. Lamin Kamara, who addressed journalists on Friday, August 12, on behalf of his colleagues, said they were compelled on what he called deliberate failure of the government to make payments on contracts already completed.
Kamara, the Executive Director of Unique Development Enterprises Inc., said his company was contracted to construct a market building in Bowein Town, Dowein District, Bomi County, in the amount of US$80,000.
According to Kamara, prior to the planned lawsuit, the LACE made fifty percent payment of the US$80,000, in 2022, when the contract agreement was signed. But, since then, LACE has refused to pay the balance.
Besides Kamara, several other companies claim to have received only thirty percent of the agreed contract fees, and they have already concluded their projects in the fifteen counties. The projects include, clinics, market buildings, and sports facilities, among others.
The contract agreement with the 27 contractors was signed between 2021 and 2022.
Kamara further alleged that foreign contracts and expatriate firms were being accorded preferential treatment by the same LACE, to the disaffection of their local counterparts who are Liberians.
“I have been going to LACE’s office on numerous occasions to meet the Executive Director, Pepci Quiwu Yeke, and Madam Monica DeWalt, Finance Director, but whenever I go there, the staff would say they are not around, with nobody else there to tell you their whereabouts,” Kamara alleged.
According to Kamara, he took loans from several banking institutions just to finance the project as they agreed.
“I am unable to pay the loans, because I was assured that the government was going to make a thirty percent payment at each stage of the project,” Kamara further alleged.
“The only thing to do is to take the matter to court, maybe the government will listen and pay our money,” Kamara noted.
The message from our reporters was not responded to by any of the two senior officers of LACE.
The reporter also placed calls to Yeke and DeWalt, but there was no response.
