Buchanan – Students, teachers, and faculty members of the Grand Bassa Community College (GBCC) have expressed fear over the dangerous condition of the bridge linking the school campus in Paynesberry to Buchanan city.
Report by Elton W. Tiah, [email protected]
The bridge, constructed over 20 years ago, was damaged by flood in July 2018.
Dr. Samuel Monwell, President GBCC, told FrontPageAfrica that people who use the bridge are at risk while describing the route as a “death trap”.
“I am seriously worried about this college; do not see us ending this semester or opening next semester if nothing is done to reconstruct this bridge”, Dr. Monwell said.
“We have written several non-for-profit organizations, the county authorities, and even our lawmakers to help but they have applied no effort, since last year the bridge got damaged”.
He is also worried that “if nothing is done sooner something might go wrong”.
At the same time, Lawrence D. James, President of the GBCC Student council government has blasted the county administration and the Legislative Caucus, alleging that “all the lawmakers of the county don’t care about education”.
Said James: “Look, our leaders don’t care about us. They only pretend that they like us during elections. This bridge got damaged since July of last year, next month July is going to make it 1 year since the bridge got damaged. They can only come and look but they have never thought of finding a solution to the problem the students are faced with.”
He continued: “What is saddened is that 800 students paid US$2.00 each as their contribution to a 1 dollar campaign program organized by the school to raise funds that will help the government do the bridge. Other citizens and institutions also contributed but up to now there is no clear report on how most of the funds were used.”
The student leader is disappointed that since the Save GBCC 1 dollar campaign headed by Mr. Octavius Ben was launched they have not been any report about how funds generated were spent for the rehabilitation of the bridge.
James has threatened to lead a protest of students if nothing is done to repair the damaged bridge.
“We will close the major government offices in Buchanan most especially the Superintendent’s office until we can know when the bridge project will start and how our money was used during the 1 dollar campaign”.
Meanwhile, Octavius Ben, who chaired the Save GBCC 1 Dollar Campaign confirmed that 800 students of the college contributed to the campaign as well as other prominent citizens and institutions.
“The students are right; the bridge is in a very bad condition. They paid their money because they wanted to see some differences. What happened is that we made lots of expenses during the campaign’, Ben said.
He added: “We paid for talk shows, printed out flyers, paid transportation fare and several other things including food for the team. Nobody misused any money. Most of the money they heard about was pledges which we have not gotten”.
Ben mentioned that over US$5,000 and L$1million are still outstanding pledges that have not been made good.
According to a full report submitted to the college’s administration by Mr. Ben, a copy of which is in the possession of this paper shows that US$ 3,582 and L$ 301,015 was generated in cash.
The report also shows that US$1,144 and L$134,055 was used by the Ben committee. There’s now a balance of US$2,438 and L$166,960 available.
In December 2018, Senator Jonathan Kaipay along with staffs of the United States Agencies for International Development (USAID) inspected the damaged bridge.
They later made a commitment to reconstruct the bridge but requested the government’s commitment through the county leadership and the Ministry of Public Works to provide some of the materials for the structure which has not been done.
Earlier on June 30, 2018, Buchanan district Representative Matthew Joe on posted on Facebook that the County Superintendent Janjay Baikpeh, the Bassa Legislative Caucus headed by Rep. Thomas Goshua were working behind the scene to ensure that the bridge gets reconstructed.
However, the bridge remains damaged – a situation that may disrupt the classes at the college and sparked subsequent protest by the students.