Liberia: Public Works Launches Probe for Missing Bailey Bridge Parts -Completes First Internal Audit

The Informer (Monrovia)

13 June 2011

A serious investigation has been launched into the reported disappearances of several components of Bailey Bridges that are expected to be launched on the Belle Yellah road in Gbarpolu County.

The components of the bridges were stored in a container at the GSA Compound in Paynesville, but reports said most of them can no longer be accounted for.

Bailey bridges come along with various parts to tighten them together to become useful.

Without the components which include screws, bolts and pins, among others, the bridges can not be launched, and officials concerned with the construction of the bridges have described the disappearance of the materials as “sabotage” to the building of the controversial Belle Yellah road.

Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Woods confirmed the report to The Informer last Friday and stated that an investigation has been launched into the matter.

The Infrastructure Minister described the missing of the materials as a “hindrance to the construction of the bridges” and indicated that punitive actions would be taken based on recommendations from the ongoing probe.

“I have received that report and we have mandated the Deputy Minister for Administration [Johnson Gwaikolo] to conduct a full inquiry into it to see where we are with it.” The Minister said it was too soon to conclude what actually happen and how.

“Let me wait and see what the report says – what recommendations are contained in it and then we will take the appropriate action with regards to the recommendation that will be contained therein.”

Pealat Construction Company is contracted to construct the at least 80km Bopolu-Belle Yellah road, but it last year subcontracted Team Liberia Construction to install the five bridges needed on the road.

Team’s Chief Executive Officer Stephen Olu Adams, when contacted, confirmed the vanishing of the materials, but said he does not know who took them away.

“I consider this as sabotage to the construction of the Belle Yellah road, to the work of the Ministry of Public Works and to the dream of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who is doing her best to put this country back together,” Mr. Adams, sounding frustrated, said.

Mr. Adams said it was quite frustrating to see people interfering and standing in the way of development and hinted that it might be an inside work since the container in which the missing components were in a compound guided by security.

He indicated that Team has already transported all other parts of the bridges to the respective construction sites to ensure that some of the bridges are launched before the heavy rains, but lamented that the situation now serves as a major blow to the progress.

Though the “stolen” materials have no commercials value (locally) Mr. Adams said if they can not be located, new ones will have to be imported, and this would cause financial resources and time.

“We were just about to launch some of the bridges when we realized that those components have been taken away. The container was no longer in its original position and the locks were broken,” he explained.

Minister Woods said if it is true that the material were taken away “it will be a hindrance.”

“We will then have to do something else; we might have to order some parts. It’s just unfortunate, but let us go through the investigation and identify why it happened – who’s involved so that once we get the recommendations we will take the appropriate action on that issue,” the Minister noted.

Meanwhile, Minister Woods said the Ministry’s stance against corruption and the practice of transparency and accountability remain unhindered, despite claims by some outsiders that officials of the ministry were requesting bribes to award contracts.

The Ministry’s spokesman Jesufu Morris Keita has since rubbished such allegation.

Minister Woods boasted that transparency and accountability will continue to stand as the hallmark of all activities of the Ministry of Public Works in this new dispensation, and that is the reason why the ministry has completed its own comprehensive internal audit.

The Minister said copies of the audit have been submitted to the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for her perusal. “It is an unprecedented move, the first time in the history of this ministry,” Minister Woods bragged, adding that his administration does not need to wait for the General Auditing Commission (GAC) to carry out audits.

“We don’t have to wait for GAC, in fact, they can now come and do their own independent inquiries, but we have set a mile stone,” the Infrastructure Minister emphasized.

He described the Ministry’s first volume of a major internal audit as “the beginning of transparency.”

“It’s not the beginning of perfection, but a beginning of working towards transparency and accountability. I’m happy for that,” the smiling Minister noted as he walked towards his Ministry, after inspecting drainage clearing being done by his entity in the Babla Community, few meters away from the Ministry.

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