I left Liberia on April 29, 2026 for the US. At that time, the road from my residence inside Saint Francis to the main junction on Somalia Drive was in pretty good shape. Cars could drive on it very smoothly. This was due to the reconditioning of the road after the previous rainy season. After three months away, I returned on September 2, 2026. For some reason, I thought I would meet the road in the same condition it was in prior to my April 29th departure for the US. When my cousin picked me up from RIA and we drove to the house, I did not anticipate the road going back to what it was in 2025 during the last rainy season. Indeed, the road is back to what it was during that time. Similarly, the electricity availability was always timely during the rainy season and sporadic in the dry season. Everyone living in Monrovia knows the seasonal changes in the weather condition that affect roads and electricity supplies.
Given this condition as it is, one would expect contingency plans by the government ahead of the seasons. Knowing very well that the rainy season is coming, there should be plans on how to handle the road conditions. In other words, the government contingency plans should factor in both the dry and rainy seasons. To just sit and do nothing, or leaving everything to fate shows that we are not a thinking people or we lack creativity in handling the basic environmental issues affecting our communities. As it is now, roads leading from the main roads to our various communities are very terrible. The roads are in bad shape. Sadly, we are just dealing with the bad condition as if to say there is nothing we can do about it. In the St. Francis community, the only thing you hear people murmuring about is that the roads are bad and the representative of the area is not doing anything about it. There is no community action on the part of the local community leadership to do anything about it. Meanwhile, our cars continue to jump in and out of deep holes and rivers of dirty water. By the time the rainy season is over, many people's cars will spoil thereby causing financial burden for the car owners to fix their cars. If you are car owners, you will be compelled to take your car to the garages.
All the bad road conditions take my mind back to the time when I was a little boy growing up more than 50 years ago in Saclepea, Nimba County. There was always mud on the roads during the rainy season. Between Saclepea and Ganta, cars were stuck in the mud. It was the same as between Saclepea and Tappitta. I am sure it was the same in all other parts of the country. As stated already, it is only sad that the problems we had over 50 years ago are the same problems we have today. In 50 years, we couldn't solve such problems as they are still with us.
There is a whole ministry that deals with road construction and maintenance. That ministry is the Ministry of Public Works. I am sure there are engineers working there who have graduated from some of the finest and best universities in the world. The ministry is one of the largest among the various ministries and agencies in the country. With all the education, expertise and manpower, it seems like the ministry has not been able to figure out how to solve the bad road problem during the rainy season. With such a ministry and all of what it is capable of doing, we are still stuck in the mud, jumping through huge craters and rivers of dirty water on our roads throughout the country.
As the government comes and goes, road conditions remain a significant concern for the citizens, rich or poor. The country's road network of unpaved or difficult roads, especially during the rainy season, continues to cause major interruption of the movement of people, goods and services. We heard that the Ministry of Public Works has launched an "Infrastructural Strategic Plan for 2025-2029" which is aimed at constructing, rehabilitating and maintaining about 4,000 km of roads. There is an estimated budget of about US$925.3 million for this project. Accordingly, the plan targets primary roads, secondary roads, feeder-road links, urban-road rehabilitation, and more than 2,000 km of unpaved-road maintenance. If all these efforts are employed, will the road problem be solved or will things still remain the same another 10 to 50 years from now? Will we be able to drive on our roads without the thousands of potholes in Monrovia and its environs and throughout the country? Will my grandchildren still deal with the same bad road condition like we are dealing with it today?
