Monrovia – As the rainy season progresses, many sewer lines are seen open and spilling out waste material that could create a huge health problem for the already fragile health sector that the country has.
Report by J.H. Webster Clayeh – [email protected]
For many, the problem of open sewer shows the inability of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) to properly handle the issue of the sewer system in the country.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with FrontPage Africa on Tuesday at the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation Head Office, the Managing Director of the LWSC Hun-Bu Tulay said since LWSC sewer system came into being they have 300 feet between their manholes for maintenance, which are covered
But according to him, since the end of the war, many people started to engage in the business of scrap dealing.
He noted that this is because the top of the manholes are covered with heavy iron people continue to steal manhole covers and sell them to to scrap dealers.
Tulay said: “Since the war got over and people got involved in scrap dealing, these manhole tops have become vulnerable”
“People remove them and sell them to the scrap dealers, what eventually happens those manholes are left open.”
The LWSC Managing Director further said that many people in the community are in the habit of dumping dirt from their houses into the manholes.
He added that the dirt taking from various homes into the manhole is too large to be moved by the water in the sanitary sewer line.
According to Tulay, they have put into place measures to prevent those who are in the habit of removing the top of the manhole but the efforts have not yielded positive results.
He said he was hoping that people in the various communities could help in the absence of the LWSC, but that he says is not happening.
“You know anything they say for the public; once it for the public and it does not belong to an individual they can be moving it and the people within the neighborhood will come and pass-by without saying anything”, the LWSC Managing Director said.
He also called on citizens to use their power to affect citizen’s arrests on people who will be seen removing the top of the manhole because it affects them that are in those communities.
“The police cannot be all over. We cannot be all over all the time but the people in the communities are there at all times whenever they remove these things and there is a backflow they suffer, their children suffer; so it should be their concern to make sure that people don’t remove the top of the manhole,” he said.