Grand Gedeh County – A representative candidate in Grand Gedeh County is receiving applauds for contributing to the rehabilitation of two bridges that connect several feeder roads in the county.
Willie Dweh, who is contesting as a representative candiadte for Konobo district, recently donated LD$50,000 to an ongoing community project.
Dweh is looking to increase his chances of succeeding representative Morias Waylee who has declined to re-contest. There are 12 other candidates contesting for the district’s seat in the legislature.
The feeder road project in the district, which includes repairing bridges, seeks to link Sayouwoe and Billibo towns in Konobo district.
Locals of the two communities say the donation “will go a long way in helping solve the current bad condition of feeder roads and bridges”.
“This is worth commendation from even folks who don’t support Willie’s bid to be representative,” chief elder Peter Nimely said after receiving the cash donation.
“Bad roads and damaged bridges are old age problems to us here and we will be called ingrates by even the strangers if we don’t express gratitude to those who gave us a helping hand in the course of helping ourselves”, he said.
Continued Elder Nimley: “On October 10, 2017, people will be traveling back and forth on bikes to vote, so we were thinking about how to repair our bridges and roads. Now, we are glad that some of the people we are going to vote for have started helping us to solve our problems.”
Marketers and farmers often struggle to transport their farm produce or other goods due to the deplorable condition of feeder roads made worse by damaged bridges.
“This bridge has been an obstacle to movement in recent years, even during voters registration period,” said Monyou Tailey, chair lady of a local women group.
She said the situation prevented many elderly and disabled people from registering during the voter registration process because they couldn’t go through the challenge of traveling on the bad road.
Another resident, Monyou Tailey, said Dweh’s invention was timely ahead of the crucial 2017 elections, which is now less than 50 days away.
Andrew Gaye, making the donation to the community on behalf of the candidate, said it was a contribution to ensuring the movement of people in that part of the District.
Gaye said it was the second donation to the district. The first, he said, was LD$35,000 made toward the refurbishment of another bridge linking Buway and Sayou-woe towns.
He said road connectivity is one of the core pillars of candidate Dweh’s platform; adding, “it was stimulating to contribute when the people embarked on repairing bridges in the district”.
Philip Nimley who also received the LD$35,000 donation, described the gesture as “a manifestation of selflessness and love for people.”
He said the money will be used to purchase food for workers and gasoline to power chainsaws for the construction of the bridge.
Nimley said they were manually repairing the damaged bridges to be able to transport local farm produce to nearby markets until the donation came through.
“We don’t even know how to express our appreciation because we were planning to use axes to fell these big timbers to lay them over the river until the donation came,” he said.
Report By: Moses Geply