Squatters, with no legal rights, but with permits

After yesterday's post about Kru Town, I was interested to read this article about sea erosion in West Point, which is said to be home to around 75,000 residents, most of whom, among other challenges, have highly insecure rights to their property: 

Mary B said she had bought the piece of land from the commissioner of the township for 11,500 Liberian dollars, about 130 dollars,and built her shop on it. 

According to the Township Commissioner's office, residents in the area are primarily squatters, with no legal rights to the land though it is possible to obtain a Squatters Permit from the administrative office, which grants a certain level of legitimacy to the dwellers.…West Point is home to many of Monrovia's disadvantaged people and many cannot afford the city's huge rents, which are fixed in U.S. dollars - 150 for a modest two bedroom apartment. To make matters worse the government does no have public housing available. 

People in the area have always talked about plans by the government to relocate them, but the Public Works Ministry says the government has no such plans to move over 75,000 people.

I've never heard of buying a squatters permit, but that hardly means such things don't exist or aren't actually codified legally in Monrovia or elsewhere, but the Commissioner's statement that the dwellers have no legal rights, just a vague "certain level of legitimacy" is hardly reassuring. 

Building of the Month: NASSCORP Multi-Purpose Complex

 ©Matthew Jones

Although the NASSCORP Building has been featured on the M2M Architectural Tour for many years, as it has been under construction since April 2009 (and thus almost as long as I have been going to Monrovia), it made the front pages this month as the technicolor behemoth was officially opened by President Sirleaf just two weeks ago, over five years after groundbreaking. Although construction does take a much slower pace in the developing world, it is still astonishing just how slow the progress can be.

 ©Matthew Jones

Not to repeat too heavily on what I've already written on the Architectural Tour about the landmark building, I just want to emphasize that this tremendous and unusual building has a warm spot in my heart for several reasons. Firstly, the architect, Sylvanus O'Connor, is someone I consider to be a personal friend, having worked with him professionally during my first stint in Liberia in 2008-2009, when the NASSCORP building had only just taken shape on the drawing boards of O'Connor's firm, AEP Consultants, which is located on Front Street in Monrovia.

An early computer rendering. 

Most of the major elements remained intact throughout construction.

Sylvanus is a talented and increasingly prolific designer. NASSCORP embodies much of what is prominent in O'Connor's singular style: the ebullience of its arrangements, and the flamboyance of its post-modern costuming. Like O'Connor's earlier landmark, the LBDI headquarters at 9th Street and Tubman Boulevard, the NASSCORP employs semi-classical elements but articulates a thoroughly contemporary form and finish.

Reposted from the excellent Liberian journalist blog Sengbeh.Wordpress.com from

his article about the dedication.

These gestures are only more pronounced in the NASSCORP, which is a larger building, much more prominently situated on one of Liberia's most important road crossings, ELWA Junction. It could only be unmissable if it was another standard commercial building seen thrown up in this city: hulking, heavy, and hardly windowed.  Instead, it literally glistens in a bold employment of multi-colored Alubond panels, which sparkle in a rainbow of fluorescence not unlike the oil-slicked puddles arrayed on the road out front. The effect is luminous, and a still-rare but increasingly-common option to present a shimmering, glass-covered façade more like a curtain-wall of an office tower than another darkened edifice of crude cement.

From the Nasscorp website

The candyland effect of all this color greatly softens the substantial dimensions of the structure, which is further assisted by three major formal gestures: a pair of bulbous round turrets, bridged by a soaring lobby space, which together form the tower section of the complex, and a concave curtain which connects to a thin, missile-like clock tower, all planted on a colonnaded base meeting the street, providing a transformationally urban front to what is, after all, one the country's primary traffic crossings.

Nasscorp Building in early construction, March 2010 ©Matthew Jones

This setting is a chief reason to celebrate the complex. Monrovia, stretched out over a ten-mile-long peninsula, suffers desperately from traffic congestion, as thousands of workers drive from the expansive eastern suburbs into the Central business district daily, at the western end of the Mesurado landmass. The ELWA section of Paynesville, already the gateway to Tubman Boulevard, would be a natural second commercial center for the metropolitan area. This building is the most significant step toward formally establishing that as a planning goal to date.

©Matthew Jones

Remarkable as the architecture is, its significance is not limited to the design. That a government agency raised the $11 million in project funds from its own reserves, and used almost exclusively Liberian firms, for a commercial project that aims to safeguard public pension funds, is itself remarkable.  Quoting from the remarks of NASSCORP director van Ballmoos during the dedication ceremony:

This edifice is symbolic not only because of the potential to generate revenue; not because of its attractiveness and picturesque appearance from any section of Paynesville; not only because it transforms the landscape of the city; not because of its magnificence or its towering façade over other businesses in the area, but because it signals another achievement in the reconstruction and development of the nation.

Regardless of the appeal of its appearance, few buildings have the visual, commercial, spatial, social, political, and patriotic impact of the NASSCORP building, and for those reasons, it deserves note, respect, and even acclaim.

A luxury hilltop hotel overlooking the beautiful scenery of the ancient city

From an April 9th, 2014 Letter in FrontPageAfrica, written by the head of the Liberian Community in Italy, lodging a complaint about the Liberian Ambassador there. It's worth reading in full but I liked this passage in particular, and how it somehow resonated with Monrovia, the Ducor Hotel in particular:

After it was disclosed that the Ambassador had selected his nine persons and had taken them into the hotel to meet the President, we the members of the Community walked to the Luxury Hilton Hotel, just 200 miters from the Embassy, where the President and her people were lodged. An hour later, the Ambassador instructed Security officers to move us from the premises of the hotel as our presence post a serious risk to the President.
While we walked alone consoling ourselves for the waste of time, energy, finance, we also reasoned on a comment the Ambassador often makes: ‘’ I am the President’s favorite and I enjoy full powers as Ambassador and nothing any of you can do to stop me, after all, the Liberian people noise often last for two weeks’’. All things considered during the 8 or 9 hour episode, we saw some level of truthfulness in Dr. Mohammed Sheriff’s comment. Silently, we thought to ourselves that all the messages we constantly hear of a Liberia that is being built in the atmosphere of Social Justice, Economic Progress, and the Rule of Law, Liberia still had ‘’Supermen’’ with full powers who did what they wanted and how they wanted it with impunity, even if the violated our basic rights of ordinary Liberians.
As we went away, occasionally turning back to gaze at the Luxury hill-top Hilton Hotel where the Ambassador with full powers and Her Excellency presumably sit drinking expensive Italian wine and overlooking the beautiful scenery of the ancient city, most of us were overwhelmed by the weird sensation of the recent mayhem we experienced as a people and a nation, a mayhem that came upon us for 14 years, mostly as a result of the behaviors of these ‘’supermen’’ with full powers. These extraordinary men with full powers stand willfully above the Rule of Law depriving their Countrymen of their basic humanities. These big men drives posh vehicles (The Ambassador in Rome has 3 official cars, Mercedes E Class 280 with number plate PD 028 CD, a Jaguar X-Type marked PD 029 CD and a Lexus IS200 with registration number PD 031 CD) and live in expensive villas all at the expense of poor tax payers, and yet these ordinary people are treated with injustice and view as the inferior class.

“A Short Drive Through Town”

As she looked for her car key she asked if I must get back right away or would I like to come with her for a short drive through town. 

‘Bori at night is simply fascinating,’ she said… 

She certainly knew the city well, from the fresh-smelling, modern water-front to the stinking, maggoty interior.  

We drove through wide, well-lit streets bearing the names of our well-known politicians and into obscure lanes named after some unknown small fish. Even insignificant city councillors had their little streets… 

I began to wonder whether Jean actually enjoyed driving through these places as she claimed she did or whether she had some secret reason, like wanting me to feel ashamed about my country's capital city. I hardly knew her but I could see she was that kind of person, a most complicated woman.  

We were now back in the pleasant, high-class area. 

‘That row of ten houses belongs to the Minister of Construction,’ she said, ‘They are let to different embassies at three thousand a year each.’ 

So what, I said within myself. Your accusation may be true but you’ve no right to make it. Leave it to us and don't contaminate our cause by espousing it.  

 ‘But that’s another Chief Nanga Street ’ I said aloud, pointing to my left.  

‘No. What we saw near the fountain was Chief Nanga Avenue,’ she said and we both burst out laughing, friends again. ‘I’m not sure there isn’t a Road as well somewhere,’ she said. ‘I know there is a Circle.’ 

Then I promptly recoiled again. Who the hell did she think she was to laugh so self-righteously. Wasn’t there more than enough in her own country to keep her laughing all her days? Or crying if she preferred it?  

‘I have often wondered,’ she said, completely insensitive to my silent resentment, ‘why  don't they call some streets after the many important names in your country’s history or past events like your independence as they do in France and other countries?’ 

‘Because this is not France but Africa,’ I said with peevish defiance. 

She obviously thought I was being sarcastic and laughed again. But what I had said was another way of telling her to go to hell. Now I guessed I knew why she took so much delight in driving through our slums. She must have taken hundreds of photographs already to send home to her relations. And, come to think of it, would she— lover of Africa that she was—would she be found near a black man in her own country?  

…‘I was wondering whether I could see you again,’ 

‘Do you want to?’ 

‘Sure.’ 

‘Why not? Let me call you tomorrow?’

An excerpt from the end of chapter 5 of Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, written in 1966. Posted today on the first anniversary of his passing. It’s a shame that, if people read any Achebe at all, it is only his best-known work, Things Fall Apart, which is monumental, but not his only masterpiece. In looking for this passage, which I thought was a brilliant, multivalent telling of an African city, I came across so many other great little moments just in the 137 pages of this story, which I enjoyed just as much as his other books.

The Going Rate for Office Space in Monrovia Is...

…$385,000 per year?!

In what seems to occur with ever-increasing regularity, the Liberian government was exposed in a shocking headline, the boldface type squeezed together to fit in all the zeros. Such an eye-popping figure jumped out of the latest j'accuse on one of the most recent controversies: the Liberia Telecommunications Agency supposedly signed a multi-year lease for a newly-built office compound in Congo Town, priced at $1,155,000.

How could any property, no matter how grand, command such a price in the world's fourth-poorest country? But the seven-figure phalanx is only the most densely-formed particular of the tale, which perfectly reflects both the artifice and the reality of this city’s social and political transacting.

Monrovia, like many African cities, is a place where astronomical real estate prices, rivaling office and residential rental rates in American cities, spike above a dismal landscape of unlit, unplumbed $10-per-month rooms, home the vast majority of the city's residents. The elite amalgamation of government, philanthropy and diplomacy, which is meant to serve these desperately poor people, sprays enormous volumes of expenditure, not towards their desperate constituents below, but high aloft into this stratosphere, above the zinc roofs and over the walls into the freshly-finished, $3,000 per month sea view apartments and quarter-million-dollar per year office compounds.

Another gated compound. Photo courtesy FrontPageAfrica.

What makes the situation, if not worse, than at least politically expedient, is these huge windfalls are initially captured by the tiny foreign commercial class, whether Lebanese, Syrian, Spanish, Chinese, Egyptian, Turkish, or American. Only secondarily does this non-citizen strata remit the ultimate rent to the Liberian elite: most of whom are currently or recently in government. It is not just a fact but a common practice that many of the tenants and ultimate landlords are one and the same. It is no wonder, then, that for decades and decades the Liberian government is constrained of office space, and must perennially turn to the private market to find suitable accommodation, and must pay the prevailing price.

The LTA saga casts all the usual characters precisely in this reinforcing relationship: the quasi-regulatory agency, headed by a returnee with an only-famous-in-this-town last name; the landlord-builder, not Liberian but a semi-mysterious, Chinese firm with a participation rate in the post-conflict boom that dubiously prolific, who together strike a deal for one of the plethora of "Upstairs Buildings" which have risen up across Monrovia since 2006 by the dozens.

Then, there are the brass tacks: the sums, the numerals, the commas, the zeros. And why not? It is a difficult country, hard to secure land, hard to build, hard to wait for a return on investment. Hard to trust someone. So it's the logic of the market, the invisible hand(s). It is the fee that is commanded. Who’s to say if it is a waste? There is no alternative.

And so, in one of the few remaining countries in the world where the GDP works out to less than one dollar per person per day, a million dollars doesn't buy you very much: a few years at your appointed office, high aloft with a view to the ocean, the air-conditioning floating down from the wall-mounted unit, relentlessly holding back the tropical heat outside the walls. After a few seasons, time is up, the keys are turned over, and it is someone else's turn to pay fictitious lease rates, and feel the artificial air soothe their skin.

The rent is so like that man-made cold air. It doesn't last long, and has to be relentlessly replaced. As soon as the machine is shut off, the oppressive heat outside leaks through the cracks. Like that cold, the rent is gone; it’s floated away into the atmosphere.

Liberia to Have a Sovereign Wealth Fund?

A surprising phenomenon has been growing across the African continent over the last few years: plans by more than a dozen African governments to develop Sovereign Wealth Funds. These large pools of government revenues, which are diverted from the current budget and instead invested offshore in financial markets for future savings, rather than spent currently or in-country.

These investment vehicles are much associated with affluent economies such as Singapore, China, or the UAE, and not the desperate circumstances of the world's least developed countries. But they have spread across Africa this decade, and Liberia could be considering establishing its own fund. Below is the better part of a February 13th Reuters article:

Resource-rich African countries are busy setting up sovereign wealth funds, but critics say the funds may not serve the long-term interests of poor countries that still need to invest in basics such as schools and roads. 

Three oil producers, Angola, Ghana and Nigeria, started funds in the last two years. Before them, only Botswana, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea had such schemes. Other countries are following. Zambia and Liberia announced plans for funds last month. Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have similar intentions. 

The funds can serve useful purposes, analysts say. Commodity earnings can be split into one fund for infrastructure and another for savings that can be used as collateral for even bigger amounts. 

"Africa needs higher savings," said Razia Khan, the head of Africa research at Standard Chartered Bank. "If it is done properly, the sovereign wealth fund and the accumulation of long-term savings essentially means that countries are improving their creditworthiness and opening up access to bigger sources of financing on more favourable terms. It does not preclude investment in infrastructure." 

But critics say Africa could reap more from its resources by investing in education, energy, and transport to feed other industries, rather than parking the money in liquid but low-yield assets in safe havens, as sovereign funds tend to do. Many successful wealth funds belong to countries with surpluses and rich citizens, which can afford them. That is not the case with many sub-Saharan African governments struggling to feed or educate their people, said Kwame Owino, the chief executive at the Nairobi-based Institute of Economic Affairs. 

"It would be a luxury to have. The political will may exist, but the economics of it suggest that a sovereign wealth fund is not a good idea for many sub-Saharan countries," he said. 

"In many of these countries as well, transparency is a big problem and the amount of leakage that takes place in public funds is a reason to be concerned." 

Liberia is looking at various models of wealth funds, including Norway's, the world's most transparent sovereign wealth fund, Finance Minister Amara Konneh said. The west African country also wants to avoid the so-called "Dutch disease", where a dependence on resource extraction causes other industries to wither. 

Botswana's $6.9 billion Pula Fund was the continent's most transparent on the Linaburg-Maduell index, with a rating of 6 out of 10. Nigeria's $1 billion kitty had a rating of 4 in the third quarter of 2013. The country added $550 million to the fund in February. 

"We have a real governance deficit," said Aly-Khan Satchu, a Nairobi-based independent analyst. "My concerns are that in a majority of these countries where there is a commodity-related windfall, it is proven already that in those countries the governance is the poorest of all the African countries." He cited Nigeria and Angola as example. 

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for more than three decades, appointed his eldest son to run the country's $5 billion fund in 2013. That undermined confidence in how it will be managed, given the country's reputation for squandering or siphoning off petrol dollars...Angola's money bags have been stuffed with cash since the end of the country's civil war in 2002. It is now investing in developed-market equities and bonds issued by sovereign agencies, investment-grade companies, high-yield emerging market assets and Africa's hotel sector. Nigeria's reserve was created in 2011 for three main purposes. One is infrastructure, another is a collective savings account and another is a so-called stabilization fund, to cushion against commodity price shocks. A remaining 15 percent is unallocated.

The brief mention of Liberia is attributed to this January interview with Finance Minister Konneh, in which he states that Liberia is ‘looking’ at a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Liberia is a long way off from having one, and is obviously a much smaller, much poorer, and much less developed economy than even Nigeria, with all that giant country’s poverty, inequality, underdevelopment and other major problems. Yet Nigeria has staggering poverty, but instead of injecting its oil revenues in its own development, it has in the last few years opted to set up a separate, off-shore fund.

While some of the funds may be invested in capital projects, like public infrastructure or stakes in private ventures, a good portion of it stays outside of Africa, invested in bonds and stocks. Instead of investing in children’s health or education, the money purchases US Treasuries. Instead of teachers’ and nurses' salaries, the profits from the crude are going into the pockets of fund managers in fees paid in Geneva, London, and New York. From a Bloomberg report from February on Nigeria’s new fund set-up:

Goldman Sachs, UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG were among four managers named in August to help run a $200 million fixed-income fund. Eight more managers will be appointed before the end of June, with two expected to be announced next month, Orji said.

So, not only is the money not injected into the domestic economy, it is sucked up into the global banking industry and first-world finance markets.

This is not necessarily inherently evil: prudent savings for future generations, and global expertise in managing and allocating the proceeds from extractive industry could do a lot of good. The Center for Global Development has covered this topic in some detail over the last few years. In October 2011, it published a brief paper, “What Role for Sovereign Wealth Funds in Africa's Development?” that surveyed the proliferation of Sovereign Wealth Funds across Africa, looking at established funds like those in Botswana, and more recent developments such as those in Angola and Nigeria.

The paper raises a lot of the structural problems latent in a undeveloped, resource-rich economy, such as an inability to accept large injects of capital and the high likelihood and risk that such big accumulations of government cash and authoritarian attempts to disperse that cash within the country’s administrative budget would end badly. The heart of the paper sets out the ideal best practices for a successful SWF.

Which all sounds good, but starting point in so much of the discussion of African SWFs (and much else in the world today) remains the unchallenged notion that global financialization is good.  While acknowledging how incongruous it is for the world’s poorest countries to be launching investment funds, there is little exploration in all this discussion of whether or not more current spending, on infrastructure, on education, on health care, would be a better “investment” in the future than offshore investments in U.S. Treasuries or even just in foreign currencies—piles of cash.

The paper was also published before the launch of Nigeria’s fund, which has hardly been immune from Nigeria’s notorious politics, but more positively may direct some of its investment into Nigeria’s decrepit power sector. In the case of Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, most of what has happened thus far is that the President’s son was appointed manager last June, a controversial Swiss firm as given a huge contract to manage the fund, and a massive expensive London office building was purchased as the fund’s office. The result on the streets of Luanda? The city’s street vendors were harassed by the police and banned from trading.

I know little about economics, but even after reading these papers, the drive to funnel resource revenues into offshore funds still seems a bit shocking, especially in our current age when the over-financialization of even the U.S. economy is widely questioned.

Most startling, and difficult to accept, is the idea that rather than better-paid teachers or more paved roads or clinics, megabanks like Goldman Sachs or politically-connected Swiss-registered outfits will be receiving their fee for managing the assets of the world’s poorest people, who are excluded from enjoying the benefits of their country’s natural resources, and that rather augment public and private spending, by buying low-risk assets such as government bonds or foreign currencies, the world's poorest are essentially lending the world's richest money. 

Tuk-Tuks and Tricycles

The woes and wherewithals of Monrovia's commuters shift along with the changing the means of transportation available to them, in a city that is seems increasingly clogged with traffic week by week. 

In the wake of the government's controversial pehn-pehn ban, which is still in force if not very strictly enforced—the law is holding but is dependent on traffic cops' enthusiasm for pulling over every motorbike with a passenger—the streets of Monrovia have in the last few months featured a vehicle new to the country:  a growing fleet of banana yellow auto rickshaws, which by all appearances seem to have been imported from south Asia. While these tuk-tuks offer more space, more shade and perhaps slightly more safety than the dodge-and-weave pehn-pehns, they take up more space in the choked traffic of the city, and can't slip between bumpers in heavy traffic like a two-wheeled vehicle. But at least they can be on the main streets, whereas passenger motorbikes remain banned.

This is entirely new for Liberia, although the substantial Wikipedia article on tuk-tuks notes that cities in East Africa, Nigeria, and Madagascar all feature auto rickshaws.

Not to be outdone, a more inventive faction of the pehn-pehns army has fought back for market share, by surreptitiously transforming their 2-wheeled motorbikes into three-wheeled, bonneted taxis. The Heritage reports from this week [emphasis added]:

A painstaking investigation conducted by the Independent Authoritative Heritage has established how some motorcyclists are locally transforming their motorcycles into tricycles to enable them ply the main streets in Monrovia and its environs. Motorcycles are widely refereed to here as ‘Pehn-Pehn’, while on the other hand; motorcyclists are called ‘Pehn-Pehn’ riders.    
This latest development comes in the wake of the mass importation of tricycles into the country. The tricycles have since taken the place of motorcycles, which were banned by the Government of Liberia (GOL) late last year  from plying the main streets of Monrovia and its environs. 
The government said it took the action in order to reduce the high rate of accident cases caused by ‘pehn-pehn’ riders. The government’s action also followed an incident which involved a motorcyclist and a bus drive in which the motorcyclist lost his life and the busallegedly set ablaze by some motorcyclists in revenge of the death of their colleagues. 
In the same vein, the motorcyclists were reported to have wounded several police officers, including Col. Darlington George, Deputy Police Commissioner for Operation.
Accordingly, on Tuesday, February 25, 2014, our reporter ran into one of the transformed motorcyclists on Benson Street, Monrovia. The rider, believed to have gone for lunch,  parked the self-made tricycle at the intersection of Gurley and Bensons Streets.
It is not clear whether authorities of the Liberia National Police(LNP) are aware of this made in Liberia tricycles.
But some onlookers, who spoke to our reporter, said they had seen similar made in Liberia tricycles commuting passengers in central  Monrovia without any attempt by traffic police to question the riders.
“These locally made tricycles are different from the imported ones- we do not know why the police are not detecting them. The police are not just serious people in this country. All they do is to run behind cabman for $5 dollars business leaving behind potential threat to citizens,” remarked one of the bystanders.
Beautifully colored with yellow, the cage contained an old safari motorcycle as if it is an imported one.
According to our reporter, the bystanders were seen arguing among themselves that the tricycle was not a locally made one, but rather imported from India, one of the countries where tricycles are common in the transport industry.
The well self-designed tricycle has a distance beauty that convinces anyone that it is being imported from a foreign country. The local manufacturer is reported to have used wheelbarrow tyers at the back of the tricycle, while the front tyer is believed to be the original tyer of the Safari (Honda) motorcycle.
Already plying the streets of central Monrovia, observers say the new technique by motorcyclists is believed to be working well, as there has been no report of police detecting such technique even though their presence is felt at major street intersections downtown Monrovia.
Meanwhile, the government last week announced that there were plans to stop tricycles from plying the main streets in Monrovia and its environs. 
Against this backdrop, the government is cautiously calling on business owners and the general public to stop the importation of the tricycles into the country. 
As in the case of motorcycles, the government pointed out, this is part of its ongoing measures aimed  at protecting lives and properties, as well as reducing accidents cases, mainly in Monrovia and its environs.    

Note how the locally jury-rigged motorbikes are described in such deceptive fashion in both the reporting and by the passengers and by-standers, in contrast to the admiring manner in which the imported 'tricycles' are referred.

This photo ©Heritage Newspaper Liberia

But apparently, the government has noted the new developments, with rumors that even these three-wheeled vehicles, imported or makeshift alike, may be added to the forbidden forms of transportation in Monrovia.

Monrovia Central Park Opens

I've already posted the building of the month for February, but I have something of another architectural review to post—more like something of a landscape architecture review.

Monrovia Central Park officially opened last week. The formal name is Chevron Monrovia Central Park —as a major source of funding for the park's realization came from Chevron Liberia Ltd, the local subsidiary of the San Ramon, California-based super major that is working some of Liberia's offshore oil blocks.

Monrovia Central Park isn't exactly central, in the sense that it is not located within the historic core of Central Monrovia, but is across the river, on Bushrod Island, and not far from what up until now has been Monrovia's only park-like setting: the historic Providence Island, which sits forlornly in the middle of Mesurado River, it's tiny surface a half-neglected barrenness bisected by the busy Gabriel Tucker bridge connecting Bushrod Island with Central Monrovia.

Heretofore, Monrovia has not had any other real parks: no dedicated public open spaces, other than the small, over-formal grounds of Centennial Pavillion Grounds There are a few non-dedicated open areas, such as the erstwhile make-shift football pitches at the end of the Spriggs-Payne runway, which were cordoned off in 2011 as the airport re-established control over its periphery. There is also the beach, although those are not exactly treated as public parks either by the public nor government authorities, who have made moves to wall off many beaches to the public in recent years, as has been previously noted on this blog. 

Monrovia Central Park is also not on the same scale as its Manhattan namesake. The postage stamp public garden wouldn't be hosting any carriage rides or ice-skating, even if the climate was more amenable. There's hardly enough space to kick a ball back and forth.

Also, the park suffers from a sort of over-intervention that is actually common to Liberian landscaping. There is far too much concrete, and far too little grass. These rough-shod surfaces take the shape of a surfeit of sidewalks and low walls, sitting areas where even the benches and tables are crudely cast in cement. This echoes the inner courtyards of many private residential and hotel compounds in Monrovia, which are often paved over into an unwelcoming expanse of hard surfaces, radiating heat.

There are some nice features added to the park, including several playground areas with slides and swing sets. The most monumental aspect is an enormous two-story palaver hut, the largest I've ever seen. There a number of smaller, thatched-roof stands around the perimeter, like picnic pavilions.

There is still a fair amount of grass and large trees, which is definitely a worthwhile amenity, and all-too-rare in comparison with most of Monrovia's compounds. Perhaps the most successful detail is the waterfront pavement, which acts as a sort of riverside promenade, which even includes a boat dock, perhaps for a future water taxi service, but also utilizes the Park's location, with a pleasant vista across the wide mouth of the Mesurado, looking south towards historic Central Monrovia and Providence Island.

Hopefully, Monrovians will be able to make use of the park, especially young children, and hopefully this is only the first open space that is formally set aside for the city's residents. Excerpted from the Executive Mansion press release:

The President challenged the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) to ensure that the Mesurado River is cleared of garbage, to allow those boating to have a garbage-free environment at all times...

The President seriously frowned at the Waterside section of the river, where makeshift latrines are built along the bank, terming them as unacceptable and should be removed immediately.She also instructed the committee to include the clean-up of Providence Island, to make it a tourist attraction and, at the same time, to complete the construction of the monument on the island. When completed, the monument will address one of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that such a structure be erected in honor of those who paid the ultimate price for peace in Liberia.President Sirleaf encouraged parents to join the government and its partners in the effort to create an enabling environment for Liberian children. The park, she said, will go a long way in allowing the Liberian child to play once again, where they will know no war. She called upon parents to be good partners in achieving this objective.

Satellite Photos ©Google, other images taken from the Monrovia Central Park's Facebook Page. 

What is going on with Executive Mansion, Anyway?

The last two posts from earlier this week reminded me that there is no real update on the status of the Executive Mansion, which continues to be officially unoccupied since the Taylor era. An article from last August echoes an article from a year previous, repeating the vague reasoning and on-going structural and fiscal delays preventing the President from taking up space in the Mansion either in a professional or residential capacity. 

A recent addition to the Monrovia Visitors Map. 

From the Heritage Newspaper article of August 2012, entitled “Ellen Sets Preconditions for Return to Executive Mansion:”

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's Press Secretary, Jerelinmik Piah, has disclosed that the Liberian leader's return to the Executive Mansion is contingent upon several conditions. Presidential Press Secretary Piah further disclosed: "When the time is ripe, and all of the conditions are met to return, you will know."He made the disclosure  as to when the Liberian leader will return to the Executive Mansion.The Executive Mansion, which is situated on Capitol Hill, Monrovia, is the official seat of the Liberian Presidency. It was constructed in 1964 under the regime of the late Liberian President William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman by 2,000 workers, including about a fifth of Monrovia's labor force, and 150 foreign technicians. The eight-storey Executive Mansion building, which costs US$20 million, has an atomic-bomb shelter, an underground swimming pool, a private chapel, a trophy room, a cinema, an emergency power plant, water supply and sewage system, among others.But the Executive Mansion was gutted by fire during Liberia's 159th Independence Day celebration on July 26, 2006. The fire gutted the nation's highest building in the presence of three West African leaders, at a time when then newly elected President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf switched on electricity to reach limited parts of the capital city. At the time, the cause of the fire at the Executive Mansion, according to South African forensic scientists, was electrical fault. Following the fire outbreak at the Executive Mansion, the Government of Liberia announced a closure of the Mansion, and President Johnson-Sirleaf relocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she has been performing official state functions for a little over six years now.Two years after the fire incident at the Executive Mansion, GOL on August 4, 2008 announced the start of renovation work with a plan to execute the work in phases, under the supervision of the local construction group, the Milton and Richards Architecture Firm, which in turn sub-leased certain aspects of the renovation work to other local construction companies including the Liberian-owned W.R. Maintenance & Janitorial Services located in Sinkor. The scaffold at the front of the building was at the time being erected by the Company, owned by Mr. William Y.E. Abourjeily.The cost of the renovation work was estimated by GOL to be USD$7 million. Out of that amount, USD$1 million was reportedly made available in the 2008-2009 base budget of the country, while USD$2 million dollars was said to be allocated in the contingency budget of the same fiscal year; bringing the total amount for the renovation work contingent on 2008-2009 national budget to USD $3 million dollars.However, Presidential Press Secretary Piah says following the fire outbreak at the Mansion, "We want to be sure that when the President returns to the Executive Mansion, she returns to a safe Executive Mansion." He stated that the presidency needs to be taken seriously, adding that there is a need for Liberians to be aware of several factors including reasons why it was gutted by fire, its age, the scope and dimension of the damage done to the Executive Mansion by the fire, compounded by what he calls the existing old age problems faced by the Executive Mansion.He indicated that the Liberian leader will return to the Executive Mansion in the not too distant future, but was quick to point out that "the safety of the President should be of concern to us, so we want to make sure that when the President returns to the Executive Mansion, she returns to a safe Executive Mansion.""You can be assured that the President will return to the Mansion, when it becomes very appropriate and all of the necessary requirements that we think should be met for the safety of the President and those who work with her," he among others added.

Rumors in Monrovia speculate that the President thinks the Mansion is cursed, what with the murder of Tolbert in 1979, the recent misfortunes of former President Taylor, and the fire as an augury against occupying the edifice. Whatever the reason, the Ministry of State is almost entirely housed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs next door, although I've heard the ground floor of the Mansion has some occupied offices. But for the most part, Liberia's largest, most grandiose structure continues to be renovated at a budget of at least a million dollars a year, but remains almost entirely unoccupied. 

Executive Mansion and Capitol Building Spar (in a cartoon)

Yesterday's post reminded me of this cartoon by Eric W. Dennis, Jr., which appear in the Insight Newspaper in (if I labelled it correctly) October 2012, at the time of the induction of the new congress. using the Executive Mansion and the Capitol as symbols of the Ministry of State and the Legislature. Nice use of…metonymy? Funny detail of the streetlamp in front of the mansion, but odd that the face comes out of the side instead of the front. Nice dialogue too, including the popular African proverb,“When two elephants fight, the grass suffers.”

mɛ̃ɛsɔ̃ɔ niinɛi

Here's a gem that emerged recently emerged from the Liberian Observer last week: a reprint of the Loma Weekly, a missionary-run newspaper from Lofa County, published in the Loma (Lorma) language by Lutheran missionaries to encourage literacy. Seemingly type-set with a specialty phonetic typewriter tape, and featuring a wonderful illustration, this particular cover story explains the newly-completed Executive Mansion, which surely bewildered non-urban Liberians even more than it astonished more cosmopolitan audiences. The description is also delightful:

Below is the translation: 

The New Mansion 

The new Executive Mansion, dedicated on Jan. 3, is truly a splendid building, unsurpassed in its kind in Africa. It has eight floors and 310 rooms. It has a few stairways, but nine  elevators.They say there is meaning to the plan of the mansion. The curve of the building suggests the embrace of welcome extended to all who seek help from the Chief Executive. The building has its back to the ocean, suggesting the strength of the decisions that are made in the executive branch.There is a pool of water all around the building. The building contains 55 offices, a laundry, a clinic, a library, a theater, a dance room, a church, several kitchens, and a sewing room. The building is air-conditioned.President Tubman says the building should be as a proverb for the citizens of the country. As it is a splendid work, so we should strive for excellence; as it is a bold and giant venture so we should attempt great things; as it represents hard work and sacrifice, so we should not fear suffering in the performing of our noble tasks.

That fantastic description, and apparent quote from President Tubman, might make its way into the Architectural Tour. It's also interesting that “mɛ̃ɛsɔ̃ɔ  niinɛi” clearly sounds like Mansion—New, suggesting that both words were borrowed from English. Not surprising the Loma had no word for “Mansion” previously.

Further details from the Observer article, including a sad detail which I've emphasized in bold:

...the Lorma Weekly was published in Wozi, Zorzor District, Lofa County on January 24, 1964 by the literacy program of the Lutheran Church in Liberia (LCL). The literacy program in Liberia was formally started in 1948 by the government of Liberia,   in collaboration with the Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal Churches. 

A renowned international literacy  expert named Frank Laubach was sent out to spearhead the program. He trained many Liberians in adult literacy through the churches.  Among those who did the program under him were Reverend Byron Traub and his wife Margaret, both of whom were part of the nationwide Lutheran school system.  They taught at Lutheran schools in the Meuhlenberg Mission near Millsburg and Harrisburg on the St. Paul River, at Totota and in Sanoyea, where one of their daughters,  Mae Gene Traub Best,  was born. 

The literacy program spread to Yandequelleh, near Totota and was later established in Totota Town, where the Lutheran Mission, elementary school and church were built. In Totota, the teachers worked in the Kpelle  language, and in Wozi,  they worked in the Lorma language. 

The Lorma Weekly was published in Wozi. The Wozi program was started by three Lutheran missionaries, Paul Slafford, Gerry (Gerald) Currrens and   Margaret Jim Miller, daughter of the lengendary American Lutheran missionary in Liberia, Ma Miriam Miller, mother of Margaret.  Margaret managed  with the program until  the late 1980s when she returned to the USA.

Mr. Yella Quaqua was the last supervisor in charge of the Wozi  program when, during  the Liberian civil war, the United the Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO), under the command of warlord Alhaji Kromah,   attacked and burned down the Wozi Literacy Center, including the church.  Yella Quaqua was  killed during that  attack.  The Wozi  Literacy Station still lies in ruins.  The new Lutheran Bishop, Rt. Rev. Dr. Daniel Jensen Seyenkulo, said the church does plan to rebuild Wozi, but it will have to be a long-range, five to 10-year plan.

The Lack of a New Administrative Complex is Highly Disappointing

From the beginning of the month, a time for New Year's reflection, came this gem, by Mr. Philip N. Wesseh, published in The Inquirer on 2 January, which caught my eye. I reprint at length from “My Two Disappointment [sic] from 2013.” This is a particularly helpful text to repost here, as it nicely summarizes the ELWA—Defense Ministry—New Capital saga that has flared up since 2011, and which I've covered from time-to-time on this blog, although there have been so many twists, turns, backtracks, and sub-sagas, that it's difficult to keep up with. The below includes some interesting rumors and references which I hadn't even heard before (bolding mine): 

During the course of the passing year-2013- it was my wish that one of the major projects earmarked by this government, along with its Chinese counterparts, the Administrative Complex, that is intended to host many government offices, would have started and be finished on time.
As for the Administrative Complex, my desire to see this become a reality is drawn against the background of what I saw the Chinese did in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the new African Union Headquarters, when I accompanied President Sirleaf few years ago to the dedicatory ceremony in that country. Also, I had the opportunity recently to see the newly constructed Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Ghana, which was built by the Chinese.
According to information, the Administrative Complex if completed in Liberia would be the second largest of such structure, as the one of the Ethiopian capital. Regrettably, to get this project started in Liberia has been faced with unnecessary bottlenecks, principally, on the spot on which the complex should be constructed.
It is an open secret that initially, when the project was announced, it was said that it would be built around the ELWA compound, since the area was not being used. This sparked off controversy, as there was opposition from church leaders for such a construction to use part of the area for the construction. During that time, some politicians became "bishops," thus joining the fray opposing the construction on the site. Unsurprisingly, because of the mixed reactions and "noise" over the use of the ELWA land for the project, the government abandoned its plan to use the spot for the Administrative Complex. Again, it was reported that the government might use the Buzzi Quarters, which is not too far from the Executive Mansion for this project. Like in the case of the ELWA land, controversy emerged over that decision.As uncertainty grew in the public as to the next course of action by the government in locating a new uncontroversial spot for this project, it was reported that the government has now resolved to use its own facility, the "new Defense Ministry" in Congo Town for the project. Again, it met up with resistance over this by some residents, in the proximity of the building who feared that this might affect, as there might be extension which would definitely affect their structures. Besides the residents, others joined in the argument that this would be a waste of resources to demolish such structure to replace it with the Administrative Building after millions of dollars had been spent during the late Samuel K. Doe's regime, to reach the building thus far.In all fairness, I take interest in this project, not because I have seen what the Chinese have done in Ethiopia and Ghana relative to similar infrastructures, but because of its enormous benefits to this country. In the first place, it would help alleviate some of the financial burdens of government in paying rent for the use of rented buildings; the second is that during the construction of this building, it would provide job opportunities, whether on a casual or permanent basis to many Liberians, and that considering the dependency ratio, this would trickle down to many others. Thirdly, it would also be a boost to local businesses.
I consider the delay in the beginning of this project that the Chinese are "ready' to begin, as a complete disappointment last year because it is about three years since this idea was conceived. What is more nauseating is that someone (the Chinese government) is in readiness to help us, and we are yet to fulfill outside of the bargaining. The situation can be likened to a scenario in which someone is willing to help you build a gigantic house and only ask you to only provide a land to undertake the project, and you egregiously failed to do so. In the case of this government that has the power to invoke, "eminent domain," which is rarely known as 'compulsory purchase, is a doctrine in law, according to the Black's Law Dictionary that defines it as, "the inherent power of a governmental entry to take privately-owned property, especially land, and convert it to public use, subject to reasonable compensation for the taking." Let us assume that there is no vacant land available, something I know is not possible, this government can exercise this right and fulfill the two major conditions which are "public use," in the interest of the general public and "reasonable compensation" which requires payment to the legitimate owners of the land that would be taken away. And so, I see no reason for delay in this project because of controversy over land. For me, this should be the simplest matter in this whole project.
Let me say that I am not in the mind of the Chinese government or know the present thinking of the Chinese over this delay; I am afraid that the more the delay, the likelihood that we might miss this great opportunity. Therefore, it behooves this government, which has made some strives, to act immediately for this project that would be of enormous benefit to the country and its people.

The man has a point: will there be any result to this years of talk about a new government complex, in Monrovia or elsewhere? How are the Chinese involved? Is building a shiny new citadel of ministries the best use of scarce resources?

Building of the Month: Renovated Labor Ministry

 I've spent some time in my photo archives, looking to see if I happened to have taken a photo of this building before, but it doesn't seem that I had. Surprising, given its prominent location at the city-side foot of Capitol Hill, at the terminus of a high-traffic intersection where U.N. Drive intersects with the “Bassa Community Short-Cut” –a steep, busy hill that connects to Jallah Town Road, which means it’s nearly impossible not to pass this building heading into central Monrovia. Secondly, it is relatively prominent in its former role as the Ministry of Labor. Yet the building is so indistinct that I never lifted my lens to capture it in five years of taking pictures of the city. It was just another peeling, chipping, multistory rectangle of hulking concrete without present purpose.

And yet suddenly, the building's notability is not only its location but its envelope. Like an increasing number of buildings in central Monrovia, the erstwhile Labor Ministry has emerged from its cracked concrete cocoon to reveal the iridescent scales of a beetle-green glass façade. The effect is dramatic.

This rehab is the latest work of the CNQC Qingjian International, which is one of the massive Chinese infrastructure companies which has had a major presence in Liberia in the reconstruction period, as it has in dozens of African countries from Mali to Lesotho.

I don't have more information on the building's future use for now–for all I know at present, the Labor Ministry could be moving back there–but the choice of materials is striking both visually and in terms of what this new stylistic paradigm continues to say about Liberia.

On the one hand, the proliferation of shiny glass sheeting down the fronts of the city's buildings, a startling phenomenon that began about five years ago and had been noted on M2M before, speak to investors' confidence in the economy and security situation at street-crossings that ten years ago were war zones, with nothing but shattered windows. Secondly, however, this paradigm of throwing up expensive, flashy envelopes to cover over cheaply-constructed concrete shells to make glasshouse bubbles of class-A office space, sucking up air conditioning from diesel generators, is not exactly a contribution to a long-term future. Not that buildings are built differently elsewhere.

In the here and now, these Dubai-style glass boxes stand in stark contrast the the other 99% of the building stock. While I haven't had time to find out more about the plans for the building, I was able to shoot the picture below from Redemption Road, looking at the backside of the new block. It is a somewhat astonishing juxtaposition of the new building and its neighborhood, Buzzy Quarters–the traditionally-Lorma-dominated enclave of informal housing, wedged along a swampy creek between the mighty edifices of Capitol Hill and the vast fortification of the Barclay Training Center, which is home to the Ministry of Defense (many early soldiers were Lorma, hence the development of the community decades ago). The old Labor Ministry's new skin shimmers like a pair of polarized Oakleys, one of several new buildings rising over the cityscape, which still consists of rusty corrugated zinc roofs, just as it has for decades.

Renewed Government Effort to Wrest Control of EJ Roye

There's a fresh round of noise in Monrovia in the past week as the government (so often referred to as, "The Unity Party led government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf" in the press) tries to again gain control of the Edwin J. Roye Building on Ashmun Street. Famously built in 1962 with what was rumored to be government funds for the then-predominant political party, the True Whig Party. There's a lot of grand-standing from the individuals quoted here, but also some references to interesting points in the building's history, such as a PRC-era decree seizing the building. Here's a reprint of two press reports from this week, one from the Informer, the other from The Inquirer:  

The Unity Party led government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stands accused of having employed force and intimidation in the recent seizure of the grand True Whig Party (TWP) Headquarters situated on Ashmun Street in Monrovia. 

In a press statement issued in Monrovia on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 by a stalwart of the TWP, Mr. Reginald B. Goodridge, Sr., said Government's seizure of the party headquarters recognized by the National Elections Commission (NEC) was not only illogical, but an affront to Liberia's emerging democracy. 

Mr. Goodridge who was in a rather despondent mood while addressing the Liberian press, lashed at the UP-led administration for using the defunct People's Redemption Council (PRC) 33- year-old military Decree No. 11 in confiscating the E.J. Roye Building now reportedly leased out to an unknown business tycoon for at least US$130,000. 

Terming the PRC Decree 11 as draconian, and a military instrument, Goodridge took up time to refute GOL's claims that leaders of the TWP used tax payers money to erect the EJ Roye Building. 

"I want to categorically debunk such claim by the Johnson Sirleaf UP Government," Goodridge remarked, and disclosed that the EJ Roye Building, meaning TWP Headquarters, was constructed in 1965 from dues paid by partisans, prominent stalwarts, friends and sympathizers. 

He said the Liberian Government has made several attempts to forcefully confiscate the building; firstly, through eminent domain to no avail and that it was on November 11, 2013 when the Justice Ministry Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs, Cllr. Benedict Sannoh, applied the PRC military Decree 11 in seizing the EJ Roye Building backed by LNP officers and GSA Director Mary T. Broh. 

Goodridge explained that GOL has exhibited a blatant disregard for the due process and property rights toward its forceful seizure of the Building just as it did in the case of the National Culture Center, Kendeja, established by TWP Government, to a millionaire friend of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. 

He said the EJ Roye Building is the legitimate property of TWP and urged government to overturn its decision and give back the Building to the party. 

Accordingly, the TWP has written communications to the Embassies of the United States of America, United Kingdom, ECOWAS region, amongst others, informing them that the UP government's action constitutes a potential conflict returning to the country. 

Meanwhile, the TWP in its press statement issued, called on pioneers of progressive forces in the vanguard for the promotion of multi party democracy for decades, Peace Ambassador George Weah, Cllr. Varney Sherman, political parties, LCC, Interfaith Mediation among others to speak up against "this evil that is threatening to reverse their successes."

The second report, in which the TWP leadership puts the burden on the government to prove that the taxpayer paid for the EJ Roye's construction. I've highlighted the more electric bits: 

Some aggrieved partisans of the True Whig Party (TWP) have called on the Government of Liberia (GOL) to stay away from the E J. Roye Building which they say government is applying force and intimidation to seize the National Headquarters of their TWP. Speaking with journalist at the King's Building on Buchanan Street in Monrovia, Mr. Reginald B. Goodridge said such illegal act on the part of government was done without due process by personnel of the General Services Agency (GSA), backed up by a large squad of officers of the Liberia National Police (LNP) and the Executive Protective Service (EPS) on November 11, 2013. 

Mr. Goodridge pointed out that GOL has not issued any official public statement on its actions, but the Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Justice, Benedict Sannoh, and the GSA Director, Mary Broh, have both stated off record that the GOL is using Degree '33' which was instituted by the Peoples Redemption Council (PRC) following the 1980 Military Coup d'Etat, which overthrew the TWP Government. 

He added that there are several contradictions in the Government's actions, saying that the Government claims that it is confiscating the building as its property rights relying on PRC Decree No. 11. 

At the same time, the Government has admitted that it made a deal with some individuals of the True Whig Party worth several hundred thousand United States Dollars for the privilege of confiscating the building and these same individuals recently published in a local newspaper that they had leased the building for US$130,000.00 (presumably to the Liberian Government). 

This disclosure has infuriated the Ministry of Justice which had preferred that its deal with these individuals remained a secret. "I believe whenever government uses force against peaceful citizens without due process, it is a sign of weakness," Goodridge said. He added that in the wake of this illegal act, a delegation of the True Whig Party sought clarifications from Madam Mary Broh, the GSA Director General in a conference and over the telephone as to her motive, but and in her typical style, she resorted to abusive invectives, and that Madam Broh threatened that if anyone approached her on the issue of the E J. Roye Building, she was prepared to use her gun to shoot them down. 

He told Broh that partisans of the TWP are no longer afraid of bullets or government's bullets, adding, "Thirty-three years ago, on that black day of April 23, 1980, when 13 of our stalwart partisans were lined up on South Beach and shot in cold blood, they were not afraid of your bullets, so we are not afraid of your bullets now; in your conscience, you know that what you are doing is wrong and illegal and your threats are simply an expression of your fear of uncertainty," the TWP stalwart averred. 

Mr. Goodridge stated further that the TWP pities this government or any government that takes pleasure in using its weakness to put up a barrier around an opposition political party's institution, adding, "Know this, Madam President; instead of erecting barriers to multi-party democracy, you must break down the barriers of poverty, hunger, ignorance and disease among our youths and the Liberian people. Our people are suffering; Instead of putting food on their table and money in their pockets, you are busy taking a political party's property by force and you must break down the barriers of ethnic tensions and moral degradations in our society," TWP said. 

The party furthered, "You must break down the barriers that prevent our children from going to school, the barriers that have turned our children into street peddlers and drug addicts." 

Mr. Goodridge also said that President Roye was deposed and eventually killed on the very spot where the E.J. Roye Building now stands. "His body was dragged down to Slipway and dumped in the river. Propaganda was spread that he was drowned while trying to escape, but the truth is, the deposing of President E.J. Roye was Liberia's first coup d'etat, this is why the E.J. Roye Building to us is more than just a political party headquarters; it is more than just a building and it is a spiritual shrine symbolizing the fervency of our belief in justice and equality for all regardless of social, tribal or religious background." 

Mr. Goodridge added that the reason that the TWP has lasted all these years is because it was built as an institution based on its Unification and Integration policies which envisaged the cohesion of every individual citizen as equal partners in the party and it did not depend on the pocket of any single individual and TWP was organized as a corporate entity that made investments and bought shares in viable corporations in order to sustain itself financially for future generations. 

He added that the first attempt was made through the process of Eminent Domain, which did not succeed, then the Government informed the party lawyers that it had documentation to the effect that the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) owns the building. 

He also said that it turned out that certain individuals some years ago received cash from NASSCORP in an illegal deal to sell the building, but NASSCORP could not produce any documentation to authenticate its ownership. 

Mr. Goodridge concluded that the Liberian Government then claimed that the E.J. Roye Building was built with tax payers' money adding, "This has not been proven; they have challenged Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former True Whig Partisan, who served as Deputy Minister and Minister of Finance under the late President William R. Tolbert's government to produce any documentation such as budgetary allotment or payment voucher to show that the E.J. Roye Building was built with government's money."