Monrovia – After several months of protest by residents of Whein Town Community in Paynesville, Montserrado County on the issue of health hazard posed by Liberia’s biggest garbage site, it seems that the garbage nightmare for dwellers of that area is far from over.

The Whein Town Community, just several miles from the nation’s capital Monrovia with the population approximately  over sixteen thousand continues to get the pinch from the consequences of garbage as they have revealed that the Liberian Government has reneged on promises made to better the  environmental condition  of the place.

Since the site was placed there in the mid part of the year 2000 by the Government of Liberia through the Monrovia City Corporation Solid Waste from a World Bank sponsored Project, poor sanitation of the community continues to go from bad to worst.

In the community especially for those living closer and several yards from the garbage site are being engulfed constantly by the offensive odors, swam of flies, ants and mosquitoes that make the environment uncomfortable for dwellers.

Speaking to Reporters from the WASH Reporters & Editors Network of Liberia as part of the Exclusive Media Focus on Sanitation with support from WaterAid Liberia and Sierra Leone, residents continue to complain that government has abandoned them, ignoring its sole responsibility to protect her citizens and make their living environment conducive.

Madam Wade Julius-Morris, Women’s Leader of the Community told WASH Journalists: “What we as residents of Whein Town are going through an unbearable condition as you can see, this garbage site put here by government is gradually killing us as our environment is no long friendly”.

Madam Morris said: “there is no need for me to narrate the genesis of this garbage site because you Journalists know the story more than us, but what is regrettable and frustrating is that [this] government has reneged on the many promises made to us over the years”.

“From the pollution of our private wells in the community due to the garbage, the government promised to construct safe water facilities in the community for the residents but to our surprise, two reservoirs were erected.

How can this little reservoir you see behind me, adequately serve and supply water to a community with over sixteen thousand dwellers?”, she wondered.

Mrs. Morris further indicated that in line with the Liberian Government’s promises, the health center is yet to be built.

Besides: “President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said that government’s interventions in addressing the residents’ concerns could be done in two phases, short and long terms, but we do not know when it will be done”, the Women’s Leader emphasized. 

Another female resident of the area, Sano Gaye who is just a stone throw from the garbage site called on government to relocate the site to a non-residential area/community.

Mrs. Gaye said the situation of the garbage is worsening every day, as there is an increase in the odors of the garbage as well as ants and flies causing them to get sick daily, especially the young children.

“We are treated like foreigners in our own country from our present condition as you Journalists can see. When we are eating, we and the flies can be fighting because we don’t want flies sit on our food..flies are carriers of various diseases and germs”, Madam Gaye stressed.

She added that: “in the day we have the flies and the ants to deal with and at night the mosquitoes can actually give as hell, even when we burn the Chinese mosquitoes’ tables and the coils”.

Mrs. Gaye said for the past four years they have been promised by the Liberian Government through the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) that the community will be sprayed and residents will be provided medical treatment and mosquito nets, but are yet to receive the items.

She pointed out that few months back when the garbage was guttered by fire and the fire was embarrassing them, she had to spend over two hundred United States dollars to treat her children who got sick from the effect of that fire.

For his part, a male resident, Roland Gaye said: “This garbage site is doing us more harm than good”.

Mr.  Gaye told WASH Journalists: “though I am not a water expert but for us that are closer to this garbage site, there is no good water for drinking because all the wells are yellow and have bad odors”.

“For now we are graceful to God because it is rainy season and we can get rain water to drink, bath and wash our cloth”. He stated.

When contacted, authorities at the Monrovia City Corporation, MCC said an Inter-Agency Committee was set up by government to review the situation at Whein Town with appropriate actions taken.

The WASH Media Network was informed that the MCC, Ministry of Public Works, Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, Environmental protection Agency, among others were assigned specific tasks in helping to assist residents of Whein Town.

Up to present from information gathered by the WASH Media Network, no concrete action has been taken to address the situation in Whein Town.

Monrovia – It appears that several scape buckets deployed in various communities in and around Monrovia at garbage collection points are more of curse than cure, and some communities have already taken matters into their own hands to protect themselves against health and environmental risk this garbage crisis poses.

The Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) outsourced the collection of solid waste to two companies—Libra Sanitation and Caspian—and divided the Municipality of Monrovia and its environs into two north and south regions. Caspian takes care of communities between Central Monrovia and Somalia Drive and Libra takes care of the communities between Central Monrovia and Congo Town.

These two companies, according to the agreement signed with the MCC with support from the World Bank are to regularly collect these solid wastes from these communities to ensure the sanity, as well as the good health of residents.

Before they were brought onboard, solid wastes were collected by Zoom Lion, a Ghanaian company, whose contract with the MCC was terminated by the World Bank due to fraud.

However, things are not going easy for as per the contract with these two Liberian companies’ mandates.

Garbage are no longer collected on time, the collection points are filled with overstayed garbage and communities are now left to cope with the stenches and effluvia as well as the rats, cockroaches and flies the garbage attract. 

One in five deaths in Liberia is due to waterborne diseases and one in eight children die before their fifth birthday due to the same reason, the UNICEF and WHO say. The root causes of these fatalities are due to poor sanitation, unsafe water and unsafe hygiene practice, including hand-washing.

Furthermore, the World Bank estimates that every Dollar spent on the water, sanitation and hygiene sector will translate to $10 in increased economic opportunity and productivity.

 With the rainy season still to come to an end, a situation where such garbage crisis persists in these communities only spells doom for relevant communities and an odder sanitation profile for Liberia.

Libra Sanitation confirmed when contacted by FrontPageAfrica that it was facing difficulty in collecting garbage in the communities it has been assigned by the contract it has with the MCC. In a mobile phone chat on Wednesday, an executive of Libra, Valerie Howe attributed the situation to faulty garbage trucks that should transfer garbage from various communities to the Fiamah garbage transfer center.

When FPA reporter visited the center last week there were several trucks being repaired by a band of mechanics preparing tires.

“By the grace of God,” Madam Howe said, “the trucks will get on the road this week.”     

FPA also observed that garbage spillage was not only the problem with garbage buckets deployed in communities but also the transfer center itself. Garbage spilled over a broken part on the right side of the center’s fence. 

‘Our health is in serious danger’  

Madam Youna Curtis, who lives at the corner of Buchannan and Carey Streets, said the garbage site there had placed their health in danger and was causing more mosquitoes in their community.

“Our children can no more sit outside of our houses during nighttime all because of the multitude of mosquitoes from the same garbage site, so I want to call on the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) to please move quickly into our community and help to clean up the garbage,” she told FPA, revealing that she and other residents are in search of a new location to dump their garbage.

Perhaps due to its central Monrovia location, the Buchanan Street-Carey Street garbage collection side might be even in a better situation in comparison with that of the community close to the James Spriggs Payne Airfield.

There, a gutter of decayed and decaying garbage has changed the look of that Airfield community. The site is not even passable, least to mention the stench that fills the air there.

“This garbage has spent up to two years and it looks bad. The dirt has covered the entire road,” said Solomon Williams, who lives in a house not far from the moisture site of the garbage collection.

“You can see garbage all over here and it spends up to two weeks before it is removed because the entire community is using a single bucket to pile garbage,” added Williams, who pointed to a huge pile of spilled garbage from the long scape bucket overlapping on the asphalt pavement with his hands covering his mouth and nose against the offensive odor oozing out.

‘Willing to die for my people’

The situation on the Action Field in Devine Town, Old Road is even worse. Garbage has taken over the entire portion of the asphalt pavement just opposite Liberia Geological Survey of the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy.

Pedestrians are compelled to walk directly on the road face in dodging the pile of garbage, meanwhile risking being hit by speedy vehicles. People playing football on a mini pitch just adjacent the garbage collection point must be willing to pick up the ball from a gutter of decayed garbage, worsened by heavy downpour of rain. 

But residents have already found a solution to that problem. They have unilaterally prohibited the dumping of garbage at the particular point.

“The reason why we have decided that dumping garbage here be stopped is that the garbage is giving us hard time in this community—mosquitoes, flies, roaches and other crawling insects are really giving us hard time,” said Mohammed “Action” Sonie, after whom the mini pitch is named.

“The odor from the garbage is also creating health hazard for us in this community so we decided as community dwellers to stop the dumping of garbage here so that it can get the concern of the requisite authority,” he said. 

Sonie claimed that the community complaint to the MCC, the township of Congo Town and Representative Julius Berrian but got no redress and so decided to take matters into their own hands.

FrontPageAfrica could not independently verify Sonie’s claims; however, sources at the Solid Waste Department of the MCC said that they were now assessing the challenges with the collection of garbage throughout Monrovia and its environs to begin taking appropriate actions beginning October to curb the garbage crisis.  

“This thing is harming us. I think we know the first law of nature is self-preservation; if nobody cares about us we should care about ourselves.”

He said he understands that it is illegal to take law into one’s own hands but stressed that they were ready to bear the full wrath of the law. 

“I am one of those who is always willing to die for my people,” Sonie said. “So when I am arrested, I will be set free because I would have committed no crime… to be incarcerated for so many days.”

Some time ago, residents of Gaye Town in the Airfield community, opposite Wroto Town took a similar stance when the garbage bucket there proved to be harmful rather than helpful.

It is highly likely that Sonie will not end up in jail, and that there will be no more dumping on the Action Field again.

Dead body and business

For Lassanah Siryon, a tailor whose shop faces a garbage collection point located on the fence of the Muslim graveyard (Mandingo graveyard) in Gaye Town, Old Road, the impact of the garbage goes more than stench and rodents. It has got an economic implication.

“Of course, yes, it has scared away some of my customers. I received four to five customers a day but they are not coming,” Siryon said when asked how his business was faring with the garbage.

 Moreover we wanted to have done a different business here but we can’t because of the garbage situation,” he said.

He said other shops adjacent to his had closed down, and that his plan to start a provision shop had gone down the drain.

“The odor from the garbage gives us hard time. We don’t have the means of getting the garbage out of here,” he lamented, adding, “It is a great embarrassment to us.”  

The Gaye Town, Old Road garbage collection point is perhaps the oddest. Placed on the mold-covered fence of the graveyard, the MCC-marked lone garbage-filled scape bucket was surrounded by a pile of garbage enough to fill it an additional three times.

A gutter of decayed garbage has been formed between the bucket and the wall and the gutter even extends up to three yards from the bucket. It has attracted some amphibians, with tadpoles visible from a distance.

And being surrounded by trees—sheltering it from sufficient sunlight—with the quietude due to the presence of the graveyard, it seems the perfect breeding ground for frogs, as well as a repository of mosquitos, cockroaches and rats.

If they come for it on a regular basis—twice a day—it will help because we all, one way or the other, are benefiting from the garbage [bucket],” Siryon continued.

He said it was important that authorities within the community prohibited the nighttime dumping of garbage, adding that it was possible that people could dump dead bodies.

“I came here this morning and saw a dead dog here,” he explained. “I had to climb up; seal the dog in a bag put it in the bucket because when it remained there, the entire place would smell.”

The law no longer holds,” he said in reference to a city ordinance that prohibits the dumping of garbage after 6:00 pm.   

Just adjacent the garbage bucket at the Executive Carwash, a garage—Sekou Mulbah Garage—is situated. Proprietor Sekou Mulbah also said his customers had dropped since the pile of garbage there has been frequent recently.

Moreover, Mulbah told our reporter that the garbage was also impeding the effort of apprentices and workers at his garage, as they could not afford to lie underneath vehicles that are brought there for repair.

“Look at the rashes on this back,” Mulbah said pointing his hand to the naked back of an 18-year-old apprentice, Prince Yelley.

Holes and red dirt  

Apart from the environmental and health issues associated with various garbage collection points, there is also the issue of the health and wellbeing of the roads on which these garbage buckets are placed.

The earthmovers that put the garbage into the truck to be taken to the transferred center dig big holes at each site, which undermines the asphalt pavement of the roads.

That is the case with Saye Town in Sinkor, Airfield, Action Field and the Executive Carwash at Old Road Junction, nearly all of the sites visited by our reporter.  The MCC has already begun filling up those holes with dirt but it is not certain not enough to give those places a facelift as the rain continues to fall.  

This story is a product of FrontPage Africa’s environmental reporting program. Writing by James Harding Giahyue (jamesgiahyue@gmail.com), reporting by Macaulay Sombai (sombai121@gmail.com), Willie N. Tokpah (willie.tokpah@frontpageafricaonline.com) and editing by Samwar S. Fallah (samwarfallah@gmail.com)

Paynesville – Recent WASH survey says poor sanitation in and around Monrovia continues to be a serious problem especially the management and disposal of waste.

Report by David S. Johnson, Intern MediaAid Foundation, 0776315864/0886315864

Poor sanitation, WASH says, gives infections the ability to spread quickly which can cause major human parasitic diseases.

Covering miles in the Whein town community adjoining route to the community main street is a huge dump facility that has been authorized by the Government of Liberia and the Monrovia City Corporation since 2011 which stinks the air and had according to residents provided a serious health hazard; mosquito’s bites, flies, cockroaches, and unsafe drinking water in the community.

Speaking to its community chairman, Stevenson Yond, who had been chairman for two years, said he is very disappointed in the manner the Government of Liberia and the Monrovia City Corporation is handling the issue of the garbage health problem with the residents of Whein Town.

He mentioned that during this time of rainy season in Liberia there is a huge flowing of water directly from the dump facility into the community which is infecting the wells and hand pumps in the community.

“There is no safe drinking water for our people here, no hospitals, or clinics, and no lights”, he says. Speaking to this paper, he also refutes claims by the community members that he is receiving brides or tips from MCC in order not to advocate on the community’s behalf over the issue of the garbage disposal at the site.

According to the MCC the facility since 2011 had being created to help with the problem of solid waste management in the City of Monrovia but the Whein town community dwellers are in dying need for its closure or that the government provides them with clinic, safe drinking water amongst others.

Meanwhile some residents at the sites have complained that there is no need to give their complaint to the government or speak with journalist in the area, alleging that the community leader is taking bribe from the MCC  and several journalist who had interviewed them since, had led to nothing being done about the condition they are faced with.

According to Fatu Cooper, another resident, the Ministry of Health had begun distributing mosquitos’ nets in the area to help tackle the community problem but safe drinking water, a hospital or clinic, is lacking as the community continues to suffer from water borne diseases like rashes, itches, etc.

They are however calling on the Government and MCC to prevail this time on the matter and come to their aid.