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By: Togba-Nah Tipoteh
An individual or an entity is a fiasco when such a person or entity does anything foolish, non-serious, or non-credible. On Tuesday, July 9, 2024, the Front Page Africa (FPA) Newspaper published an article on page four, calling the Western Cluster operations in Liberia a Fiasco. FPA is correct. The Western Cluster operation in Liberia is a Fiasco.
As far back as 2011, Western Cluster signed a Mineral Development Agreement (MDA) with the Government of Liberia (GOL) to operate mineral activities in Grand Cape Mount, Bomi, and Gbarpolu Counties. However, the ebola and the COVID-19 viruses prevented the implementation of the MDA. Later, the Ministry of Public Works of the GOL banned the Road User Permit of Western Cluster. The Joint Committee of the National Legislature on Public Works, Road Development, Land, Mines and Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment, as well as the Joint Committee on Judiciary, Claims and Petition, called upon the GOL to lift the ban on Western Cluster because they declared that the viruses obstructed the implementation of the MDA.
Under the MDA, the Western Cluster company is supposed to build a railroad and a port in Grand Cape Mount County to have iron ore exported from that port when built. However, the MDA was not carried out, and the company began transporting 100 truckloads of iron ore, 3000 tons of iron ore, on roads daily. According to the Joint Committees, the Ministry of Public Works has not been monitoring the company’s use and damage to the roads. Thus, any claim to accountability is not forthcoming business as usual. This operation means that the operation is at once a fiasco and not credible. Therefore, the powers that be have no right to claim the absence of business as usual and the presence of business with a difference. Business termination, as usual, occurs only when the prevailing bad electoral system is transformed into the enduring good electoral system.
It is only through this transformation that the people engaged in the ongoing awareness raising within the Rule of Law can take action to motivate people to transform the unfair electoral system. Only through this transformation can persons with good records get elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and any other country.
