Extreme flooding in Liberia has led a bunch of senators to suggest relocating the capital metropolis away from overcrowded and poorly managed Monrovia, a suggestion met with a mix of enthusiasm and hesitancy within the West African nation.
Flash floods triggered by torrential rains between the tip of June and early July left almost 50,000 Liberians in pressing want, the nationwide catastrophe administration company mentioned.
The flood-prone capital was notably badly hit, owing partially to overpopulation, a poor sewage system, and an absence of constructing regulation.
Assembly to debate the persistent flooding drawback, a senate joint committee in early July steered establishing a brand new metropolis to interchange Monrovia.
“It is a good suggestion as a result of our present capital metropolis is a multitude,” mentioned Chris Kpewudu, a younger motorcycle driver within the capital.
“There’s rubbish everywhere in the metropolis and in addition when it rains, there may be flooding in all places, however with a brand new metropolis, will probably be effectively laid out and our capital metropolis may appear to be, or greater than, Abuja,” he added.
Nigeria’s Abuja is one among a handful of deliberate capital cities on the African continent.
Tanzania’s capital Dodoma and Yamoussoukro in Ivory Coast had been additionally established as administrative capitals in direction of the tip of the twentieth century, with all three cities occupying geographically central positions of their respective nations.
Monrovia is dwelling to 1.5 million folks and lies on the Atlantic coast of Liberia, one of many poorest nations on the earth.
The town is the financial, political, and cultural hub of the nation, with the Freeport of Monrovia offering a gateway for Liberian exports together with iron ore, rubber, and timber to achieve the US and Europe.
However the metropolis’s poorly functioning infrastructure can barely sustain with its ever-expanding inhabitants.
The Ministry of Public Works informed AFP it was rigorously reviewing the proposal, including that the the plan didn’t but embrace a precise location for the transfer, and that any resolution would come right down to financial viability.
“Having a brand new metropolis is capital-intensive,” mentioned T. T. Benjamin Myers, the ministry’s communications director.
“As a rustic, our nationwide funds continues to be round $600 million… so having a brand new metropolis would require quite a lot of technical, monetary, and financial elements to be critically thought-about,” he added.
The proposal to interchange the capital will not be a brand new one in Africa’s oldest republic.
In 2012, then-president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf steered relocating Monrovia to a brand new metropolis referred to as Zekepa within the centre of the nation.
“We had been all enthusiastic and searching ahead to that,” Marayah Fyneah, the nationwide program officer of the Liberian Girls’s Legislative Caucus, informed AFP.
“However sadly, we didn’t even see a plan to indicate what the town would appear to be,” she added.
Fyneah mentioned she was sceptical {that a} new Liberian capital would ever materialise in her lifetime, given the failure of the earlier try.
Some residents interviewed by AFP had been additionally hesitant and mentioned the federal government ought to first prioritise enhancing infrastructure and tackling poverty earlier than trying to find a brand new capital.
“Our lawmakers are forgetting the problems that we’ve available as a rustic. Even the town of Monrovia is poorly managed when it comes to sanitation and much more,” mentioned one commentator, the journalist Princess Elexa VanjahKollie.
Specialists have additionally warned of the intensive city planning wanted to create a viable new capital.
“To ascertain a brand new metropolis will not be a fast repair,” Christopher Wallace, an economics lecturer on the College of Liberia, informed AFP.
“You wish to take into account the financial actions that might make the economic system vibrant in that space, and you have to have accomplished zoning to have a transparent structure of what such a metropolis will appear to be,” he added.
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