WHAT IS AT STAKE IN DISTRICT FIVE?

                                             Written by: Gaius F.Barsee-Giah

                                          A PROMINET YOUTH OF DISTRICT FIVE

District five one of the largest in Montserrado county, has for the past five years suffered at the hand of bad representation. For the past five years, the district has been operated by one man without the input of the people. The district does not have an office space where people of the district can elect their own zonal head to work with their representatives. The district begins from the Robertfield international airport road where guest arriving in here should start to be attracted to our country from, but none of such.

We have a representative that lacks vision and lobbying power. One that does not have charisma, and believe in the usage of his allegedly ill gotten wealth, at the ignorance of few of our people who thinks he is a good man. Mr. Snowe did not receive any will from his parents with millions on it neither is he known to be a business man like James Davies. Remember the scripture says:” My people perish because of lack of knowledge” that is the case with the people of district five. When the head is rotten, it affects the rest of the people who should be running along it.Unfortunately,for us in the district, where we have  inhabitants of at least 35,000 -45,000, there are four private clinics with least well train medical practitioners not mentioning doctors. No adequate drugs to help our people illnesses. There are no public toilets in the almost fifty communities of district five,thus,causing sicknesses of all kinds to affect our little ones and even our older folks who have got not enough energy left for the defense system in their body to combat any diseases. Malaria as we all know kills most our children before they reach the age five. What future is there for those kids and what good care is there for our elders who are nearer the dusk of life? NONE.

I told a group of young people that most of the problems we face in Liberia today and past times are not only due to wrong policy by policy makers but because of bad representation and electing wrong policy makers. As we stand now as a country, do you expect the current legislators to pass the recommendations of the TRC? NO.WHY?

Look into Nimba County for example, the both senators. Look into Bomi caucus, Grand Gedeh, you see people that fought war and kill people free of charge and sit under immunities that they enjoy and get pay from our taxes. You see people, who sat at LPRC and stole millions to impoverish our people and enrich themselves, yet they are in there and now the TRC report and recommendations becomes a trash to them. Look at the referendum, blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. The reason is because some of those that are there only think about themselves and do not care about the future of the country and their constituents. District five is not an exception of this bad representation because Mr., Snowe will not in any ways vote for the TRC but will support anything in the referendum that suits him or in any other bills.

Our people are now seeing why those people always want to be in power and want to be policy makers, because they want to pass laws that will protect them from prosecution, protect their stolen monies, bad businesses they have invested in and keeping the electorates down. This time around in district five our young people, old mothers and fathers, marketers, youth groups are up for a change because we are exhausted of been kept down. We do not want to be mistreated by Snowe anymore! We want to be part of the decision making of the district. Developmental plans should evolve from us. For five years, we have not known how much government place in the budget for us. Who have our money, not the superintendent, it is Snowe.We did not discuss any bill together during any of his recesses and he did not vote for anything that we instructed him to or not to. He is not a leader if he were; he would still have been speaker of the Honorable House of Representatives. Therefore, we want a change. We want to give someone else a try. Nations and districts are great today because people kept giving others a try and got the best one.

Does Mr.Snowe think that taking his personal fund to buy zinc for King Gray town hall makes him a good representative? Or building one toilet in Paynesville Joe Bar quite recently, or two to four hand pumps in some part of Congo Town? Been a representative means all cannot go so let send someone that we can trust, sending him was not a bad thing but the people did not know his only agenda was ME,MYSELF,MINE,AND I. Had our people known, they wouldn’t have voted him. He wants only to protect his properties and wealth. He claimed that he got his money by been match commissioner in Korea/Japan 2002 and made usd$500.00 a day for a month. He ran campaign for Sepp Blatter in Africa. Can you believe this joke of how he got rich and is thinking we are commodities he can buy at will?

A representative should be unlocking developmental opportunities for his people, having good human relationship, and national and international moral character. Not one with UN travel band because of his involvement in things that are against national and international norms. How can he even spot an investor to invest in district five or any contact to impact the people’s lives. The district has got no library where our children can spend time to read and do their assignments and make research. NO internet facilities where they can pay at least an affordable amount to get familiar with making research and hooking up with world. This in itself could generate fund for the district and her people. But he cannot do such cause even to lobby with central government in his people behalf cannot be done what more about the outside world.

My beloved, constituents in all of our communities and slums of our district, this time of our elections is not pay day time. If anyone told you that the people will only get for themselves and do not have your time so this is the time to eat, you are mistaken again. It will be that you are accepting the wrong advice and not caring about the future of our children and Liberia as whole. If Mr.Snowe told you that he so rich to develop the district it is a blatantly untrue. There is no one that uses their personal resources to develop a district; it is the resources that you have entrusted into his hands that all of you should be using to do so. But as you have seen for the past five years, the power we give him was only for big people, like Cllr.Wonusue.There have been several accidents in our district where our brothers,mothers,sisters etc.died but they are not big names so he did not care.

This is a time for sober reflection on how he failed and brought us nothing but flimsy and childish excuses. His wife left him, he was fighting legal battles, his colleagues the house hates him and many others he has to say. Beware the ides of March, it thus come. Let not this time around give a man’s job to a boy. Mr.Snowe had travelled to eighty-eight countries around the world what impact has it have on our district? NONE.