Liberia's brutal civil war ended nine years ago but another round of war has engulfed a country still struggling with its recovery process. At least, that is what the continual attack and abuse on the country's infrastructures speak to, thereby prompting what others, including Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Woods, have termed as the 'War on Infrastructure'.
Ranging from uprooting of cable wires from electric poles to the removal of tops of man-holes in the middle of streets and bridges and to the looting of mental materials serving as lads over bridges, post-war Liberia's infrastructures continue to come under attacks of vandalism. The latest is the newly constructed King Zulu Duma Bridge still widely known as the Vai Town Bridge.
With just about seven months of its formal dedication, the bridge now suffers vandalism at the hands of criminals whose obvious intentions are in two-folds: selling of the looted and uprooted materials while at the same time ensuring that the bridge becomes impassable at nights. They have successfully disabled the electricity provided by the installed streetlights.
On a recent assessment visit to the bridge, it was discovered that the vandalism went great lengths to include the extraction of the electric cables from the streetlights which subsequently leaves the bridge in darkness. Not even the presence of a Police depot at the foot of the bridge's Waterside portion is enough to dissuade the criminals who have re-awakened fears amongst pedestrians using the bridge at night.
The Zulu Duma Bridge was recently constructed to replace the aged Vai Town Bridge whose collapse for almost five years worsened the usual huge traffic commuting between Bushrod Island and the central parts of the capital.
The recent attacks on the infrastructures also extended to the new traffic lights being installed to regulate traffics at the crucial crossings of the Gabriel Tucker Bridge entering Central Monrovia, the Zulu Duma Bridging entering the commercial district of Waterside and the main UN Drive of the Bushrod Island. However, attempts to disrupt the operations of the new traffic lights failed as their bursting of the new pavements beneath the lights to extract possible cable wires proved to be wasted efforts. An apparent farsighted team of engineers carrying out the installment opted that the lights be powered by solar panels.
The ongoing war against the infrastructures remains the greatest threat to the country's recovery era as attested to by Minister Woods.
"Theft and abuse against our infrastructures are retarding progress", the Minister is quoted as telling a team of journalists during the tour.
Police officers assigned at the nearby depot explained how difficult it is to provide 24-hour surveillance for the bridge and its surrounding infrastructures. Truly said, not even the most sophisticated country with huge police force of all the needed logistics can assign a police officer to each of its infrastructures and public facilities.
One suggested remedy from one corner of the debate is the need for Government to abolish the scraps and copper markets.
Well, the Works Boss thinks the best protection for these infrastructures is mental reform. "There's a need for mental revolution in this country", he lamented.
This sad post-war story is what is happening right in the capital Monrovia, leaving convincing rooms of fears for what may be happening to infrastructures and other public facilities in the rural parts of the country.
Just like combatants were disarmed as part of the process to stop the Liberian war, so too do we need to reform our attitudes in how to protect and maintain the infrastructures we are still struggling to rebuild, some with the aid of humanitarian governments and multinational organizations. That's the irony: that these governments and organizations are sympathetic of our situation while we are not. We should and must apply the Liberian adage "Stretch your stomach when someone is stretching your back".
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