National

Residents and travelers along the Fish Town-Harper highway in Southeastern Liberia are experiencing hardship due to the bad road condition in the area.

According to our reporter who just returned from the region, a truck marked BT-1517 and an Isuzu trooper jeep with plate #BC 2679 on Sunday, August 29, 2010 got stuck along the highway at the Jappaken mud, near the village of Nyantienbo, in the Webbo District River Gee County, thereby making it difficult for the passage of both commuters and other vehicles on that muddy route.

As a result of the deplorable road condition, transshipment trucks and other vehicles conveying passengers and business people along the route are also entrapped at the bad mud that is holding vehicles.

The situation was so grave that assessment teams from the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the German Agro Action could not continue their tour of educational and other facilities in the area.

The MOE team was headed by the Deputy Education Minister for Planning, Research and Development, Dr. Kadiker Rex Dahn, while the German Agro Action team was also headed by the Officer-In-Charge (OIC), Philip Cooper.

Both officials told the Daily Observer in a separate interview that they were out rightly frustrated over the deplorable road condition which had prevented them from assessing ongoing educational and other projects in the region.

A new group of 14 U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers have been sworn-in, bringing to 20 the number of Peace Corps Volunteers currently serving in Liberia. The new Volunteers are high school teachers who will teach English, Mathematics and Science at the schools in Grand Cape Mount, Bomi, Lofa, Bong, Nimba, River Gee, Grand Gedeh and Grand Bassa counties.

The swearing-in of these new Volunteers, who will be in Liberia on a two-year assignment, marks the resumption of the full Peace Corps Program in the country since its suspension in 1990. The Peace Corps Program was first started in Liberia in 1962. Between 1962 and 1990 more than 3,800 Peace Corps Volunteers served in the country.

The Peace Corps Volunteers were sworn-in on Friday, August 27, during a ceremony at the C. Cecil Dennis Auditorium at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia. The event was witnessed by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, U.S. Chargé d' Affaires Karl Albrecht, and other U.S. Embassy officials.

Stakeholders of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (LEITI) have approved a draft plan which they say will sustain and strengthen the country's position as the first compliant African nation to the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiatives (EITI).

LEITI is hoping to further strengthen and increase its position to fully implement its mandates as required by the Act that created it, including monitoring the expenditures of resources accrued to the government from the extractive industries.

The plan, which allows LEITI and its multi-stakeholders partners to conduct a scoping exercise of its experiences over the last two years, was approved on Saturday, August 28, 2010, at the close of a two-day retreat hosted by the Secretariat of LEITI.

The retreat was held on the theme: “Deepening and Strengthening EITI Implementation in Liberia, a challenge against complacency”. It took place at Wulki's Farms in Careysburg, Montserrado County, and was attended by a cross section of stakeholders representing companies operating in the extractive industry.

Representatives from gold, diamond and iron ore mining companies, as well as those exploring oil, and those operating in the forestry and agriculture sectors in the country were among dignitaries that graced the retreat.