BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa – The Liberia National Police in Buchanan has set up a temporary depot in a bus terminal the National Transit Authority abandoned.
Grand Bassa County Commander William Johnson said the police’s move into the facility came after pressure from the surrounding community that the terminal was hosting criminals.
Johnson said the complaints led his office to engage the NTA’s central office in Monrovia, which permitted the police to temporarily use the terminal. The period of use remains unspecified; however, the Grand Bassa police commander says the police’s national leadership is currently discussing with the NTA management in Monrovia to make the move permanent. He added that the newly commissioned Grand Bassa county administration would also add their voice to the calls.
Under former managing director Karmo D. Ville, the NTA contracted Dougbor Group Inc. on April 30, 2013, to construct the terminal for US$97,219.44. However, since the terminal’s completion, it has sat unused, although the agency’s buses commute between Monrovia and Buchanan daily.
The Buchanan bus terminal has been abandoned and remained unused since 2013, mainly due to its poor choice of location.
Since the police takeover a month ago, Commander Johnson notes that criminal activities in nearby communities have reduced.
He has praised residents of the Own-Your-Own community for helping the police clean and paint the facility.
Grand Bassa’s coordinator for the NTA, Roosevelt Jacobs, acknowledged the police’s temporary takeover of the terminal. Since taking his position in 2018, he said he had not been given the authority to use the facility.
“No one told me to move the buses to the new terminal, so I couldn’t make [a] decision on my own,” he said.
A leader of the Own-Your-Own community, Stephen Hill, said community members resolved to find a use for the facility because it had become a criminal hideout.
“After exerting every effort but [we] couldn’t succeed, that’s how we resolved [to] writing the police to occupy the building since it was deserted by its owner and [was] being used by criminals,” he said.
Hill said criminals had looted the facility and took away furniture. Additionally, their presence made residents avoid passing near the facility at night out of fear of being attacked or harassed. Since the police moved in, he said the community has become more peaceful.
An NTA terminal also remains unused in Gbarnga after the transit agency abandoned it. Additionally, the construction of another terminal in Kakata has remained stalled after works were interrupted during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
Featured photo by Alexander Musa, Jr.
