Travelers and motorists along the Ganta-Sanniquellie highway are appealing to the Senegalese Construction Company (CES) to continue to make intervention on the road as the rainy season is going to end.
Speaking to reporters along the road, some business practitioners, cyclist lists and travelers called on the construction company to use their yellow machines to recondition most of the critical spots on the road to make traveling possible.
They at the same time warned CSE to make every effort possible to speed up their work to reach the county capital with the pavement of coal ties during the dry season.
The travelers and some business practitioners complained of the delay in paving of the Ganta- Sanniquellie road.
The construction of the stretch of road was earmarked in 2007 as a birthday gift to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf when Lakshmi Mittal, Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of ArcelorMittal visited Liberia.
However, the entire exercise later came to a standstill due to the government’s inability to fund the project.
In June 2018, President George Weah pressed Mittal’s management to release US $40m, money intended for the project in order to fast track the project.
However, upon President Weah’s visit to Nimba, the road work resumed but continued at a slow pace until recently when the company began speeding up the work leading to the pavement of a considerable stretch of road, but travelers said the process is delaying again to their dismay.
It can be recalled that the CSE and the government of Liberia entered into an agreement after winning a competitive bid to pave the Ganta- Yekepa highway.
The project that many citizens have said has been delayed officially started in 2018 when President George Manneh Weah did the groundbreaking ceremony.
Motorcyclists and commercial drivers told Liberia Public Radio national correspondent in Nimba that the road when completed will bring economic relief to many business activities in Sanniquellie, Yekepa, and Karnplay and other surrounding towns and villages in upper Nimba County.
Some citizens speaking on the condition of anonymity revealed that the road will not only boost economy situation in the county, but will help give chance to some qualify Nimbains and Liberians to freely and quickly travel to Sanniquellie to help impact knowledge to the incoming generation at the now Nimba County University College.
They also called on the Ministry of Public Works and the local county administration of Nimba to monitor and collaborate with the company to ensure that quality and speedy work is done on the Ganta-Yekepa road.
“It is somehow frustrating that the road leading to where the world giant steel company is shipping ore from is still in a deplorable condition” one young man who prefer not to be named told our correspondent in Sanniquellie.
