The Managing Director of Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC), Mohammed Ali has frowned at government institutions and officials who are heavily indebted to the entity, but promised to disconnect debtors in the coming weeks.
“If you do not pay our money, you’re witch hunting us; we will be left with no option but to disconnect you,” Ali said.
The Managing Director calls on Liberians to stop registering and paying bills to people who claimed to be employees of the institution.
He indicated that Central Monrovia has been without water supply for years and nothing was done in the past to restore water to the city.
Speaking Thursday, April 30, 2024 at the Ministry of Information regular press briefing, Ali said in order to remedy this problem, the LWSC rehabilitated the 1-Millon Gallon Water Reservoir up Ducor and constructed a boost station at Newport Street to pump water at the reservoir.
Once filled, he said water released from the reservoir flows by gravity to supply the city. That reservoir developed a leak since 2019 and was not repair.
He said the cost for repair is about US$41,000.00 while sewage in Monrovia has been neglected for the last six years.
Meanwhile Ali said the entity is currently battling with being overstaffed. He explained that LWSC has grown from 375 employees to at least 669 between April 2023 and December 2023.
He said 124 staffers were employed in the month of April 2023, with 94 of them serving monitoring and evaluation role possessing only high school diploma.
Interestingly, Ali revealed that with these 669 employees, the entity incurs a monthly wage bill of at least US$375,000 while generating around US$100,000.
He said his administration inherited debts amounting to over US$6,000,000 worsened by mismatch of staff qualifications and positions characterized by salary disparities.
According to him, local vendors owe the debts of over US$1,000,000 while Social Security is withholding contributions of over a million United States Dollars.
He also named China Union as one of those indebted to the LWSC with more than US$26,000.
