Ganta, Nimba – Nimba’s Assistant Superintendent for Development, D. Dorr Cooper, has said he is disappointed to see UNMIL remove essential materials from its Camp Charlie Barrack in Ganta as its military personnel vacate the site.

UNMIL’s operational mandate will come to an end on June 30^th, after 13 years of maintaining peace and stability in Liberia following the country’s 14 years of bloody civil unrest. Against this backdrop, the ‘Banbatt’ and ‘Ganbatt’ contingents at the camp in Ganta have drastically withdrawn their troops from the city.

But Ganta’s former mayor says UNMIL should not remove basic equipment, such as generators, from the camp.

Cooper claimed that UNMIL had assured the government of Liberia that equipment existing in UNMIL camps around the country would be left behind to aid the country’s security.

In an interview last week with state broadcaster ELBC’s Nimba County correspondent, Franklin Doloquie, Cooper said, “You know, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General had made a commitment to the people of Liberia.”

He said the “UN had made a commitment to leave these materials for the people of Liberia, for it to enhance the work of our joint security; and to also enhanced the work of local administration.”

Cooper said the majority of UNMIL camps around the country are made of containers, and as such can only be used with the presence of electricity due to the level of heat that it produces.

He said if both national and local governments are to move their security forces into the facilities as planned, every equipment used by UNMIL must be left behind.

“Our securities supposed to take over, live here and protect these facilities,” Cooper said. “But if the UNMIL peacekeepers are taking away the generator, then our security personnel cannot live in the containers.”

Officers serving in the security forces assigned in Ganta currently do not have a stationed residence provided by the government, but rather they are responsible for renting homes for themselves among the local population.

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