The construction of the Ganta to Yekepa Road in Liberia is moving forward swiftly despite the disruptions caused worldwide by the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
The contractor, a Senegalese Road Construction firm called Compagnie Saheliane D’Enterprise/CSE has already made the stretch from Gbedin to Ganta an asphalt paved road and they are now working on the Ganta Methodist Hospital section, connecting with the pavement from Monrovia at the Guinea Road Junction.
Another group of the team is grading the road from the Sanniquellie ‘Welcome Gate’ coming towards Gbedin, where the asphalt pavement began. The aim is to link the pavement from Sanniquellie to Ganta according to CSE. “As of now our main target is to connect from where we began laying the asphalt or coal-tar. There after we plan to continue the work to Sanniquellie,” said a supervisor from CSE.
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The company is working on the Construction of Ganta to Yekepa Road from morning hours to 3pm daily, in line with the lock down hours as directed by the government. Prior to the state of emergency, they were working all day long.
The Outset of the project
The Ganta to Yekepa Road project was first heard of in 2007 when Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, visited the West African country. It was announced by the latter as a birthday gift to then President Ellen John Sirleaf.
Five years later the project was put up for bid and the Senegalese Company won the bid and brought in all the necessary equipment for the work. The entire work however came to a standstill due to the government’s inability to make available funds it was obligated to provide plus the fall in price of iron ore a few years back, which consequently tied ArcelorMittal’s hands to provide its share of the funds.
Due to this economic meltdown ArcelorMittal’s could not pay all of the US$1.5M is was obliged to give Nimba, but it did provide US$750,000 to the government in 2017 without the consent of the Nimba Legislative Caucus and this facilitated the official kickoff of the project, which had partially began in 2014, in June 2018. The project has been ongoing ever since.
