On August 30, 2023, Maryland County Senator, who is also a member of the Unity Party’s campaign team appeared in a special radio interview on OK FM in Monrovia and a made claim about the condition of roads in South East Liberia.
Senator Barney, in an attempt to stress the challenges people traveling to Southeastern Liberia faced due to the road condition, claimed that the southeastern roads under the Unity Party government never deteriorated to the point where people had to travel to the southeast through Cote d’Ivoire.
Said Senator Barney: “Before the CDC took over the country, we’ve always had bad roads, but never under the Unity Party government that we had to get to Maryland, Grand Kru – the southeast – by going through Cote d’Ivoire, it never happened.
To verify this claim, we conducted many online searches to find news articles about roads in the southeastern region during the Unity Party regime. We found many photos showing deplorable roads in the southeast.
In a news story published by Global News Network Liberia on August 17, 2008 where photos of deplorable roads between Maryland and River Gee Counties were also shared, commuters on the southeastern corridors were quoted as saying “they spent weeks on the road while trying to reach their destinations due to the bad road condition”.
We also found a New Dawn newspaper October 13, 2016 publication with a headline “Citizens Stranded in Southeastern Liberia”.The news article quotes the then Superintendent of Grand Gedeh County, Mr. Peter Solo as saying that roads in Southeastern Liberia were cut-off from the rest of the country.
Superintendent Solo told UNMIL radio Coffee Break at the time: “As I am telling you, the people of the southeastern region are extremely stranded without food and other essential things, because no car has made its way here so far for the past six weeks now”.
Our search of the claim also found another news story published by the New Dawn on August 16, 2017 with the headline “Bad Roads Affects Southeast Liberia”.
The news story highlighted the concerns of businesspeople who spent weeks trying to get their goods to the southeast.
Conclusion
Based on the facts from our research of the claim by the Mayland County Senator, we conclude that there is no evidence to show that travelers to the Southeast did not travel through Ivory Coast due to bad road condition during the region under the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf regime or the Unity Party regime. However, we found evidence that bad road condition also caused travelers to the region to become stranded during the regime of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf or the Unity Party regime.
Local Voices Liberia, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, has implemented the iVerify Liberia system with the objective of strengthening capacities to address threats to information integrity, especially in view of the upcoming 2023 elections, to ensure all Liberian citizens have access to credible, reliable and verified information, everywhere and at all times.
This initiative is funded by Irish Aid, Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia, European Union Delegation in Liberia and the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. The donors have no say in the production of this fact check report.