Claim: “Former Margibi County Superintendent Donates Waste Tricycle to Kakata City Corporation.”
Source: Providence TV and Journalist Philip Gbana on his Facebook page
Verdict: False! Margibi County’s former superintendent did not donate a tricycle to Kakata City Corporation.
Full Text: Margibi is one of the 15 counties in Liberia with five electoral districts and a total area of 2,616 sq km.
Its capital is Kakata, and it is bordered by Montserrado, Grand Bassa, and Bong counties, with the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Margibi County, created in 1985, was one of the largest hits during the Civil War, displacing around 200,000 people.
It was formed by merging Marshall and Gibi territories and was inhabited by the Bassa and Kpelle tribe.
African cities like Kakata face significant challenges in waste collection and management, including littering, open dumping, insufficient waste separation, and minimal recycling.
Like many counties in Liberia, Margibi County has had its share of improper waste.
Providence TV, an online platform, and Philip Gbana, a journalist in Margibi County, posted that there was a donation of waste tricycles to the city government to assist in cleaning the city to maintain cleanliness and handling waste more effectively.
Those online platforms claimed that Jerry O. Varnie, former superintendent donated in consideration of the challenge faced by the city in hiring a vehicle service for the disposal of waste.
Verification: TSM-Margibi’s findings contradict what was reported to the public by both the journalist and the online platform.
In line with the Local Government Act of 2014, Margibi County on June 3, 2022, conducted a County Council Sitting at the Kakata City Hall to decide the usage of US$ 425,000.00 as County Development Fund for the 2022 Budget year.
During the meeting, the majority of delegates from various sectors of Margibi County signed and approved a resolution.
As part of the resolution, US$12,000.00 (2.96% of the total amount of US$ 425,000.00) was allocated to Kakata and Unification Cities Cooperation for the purchase of tricycles to help alleviate the two cities’ sanitation challenges.
However, our fellows gathered that two tricycles were purchased for the two cities after the County Sitting.
To authenticate this, our fellow contacted Emmanuel M. Goll, the immediate past mayor of Kakata City, who acknowledged that the money was allocated at the 2022 county sitting after a decision was reached to purchase tricycles for both Unification and Kakata cities.
According to Goll, the tricycles were rejected by his administration because the size of the object was small and could not effectively remove waste from the streets.
He said he expected a second-handed pickup, which would have been better for the City Cooperation to ease the removal of garbage from the street.
Goll added that, instead, he was presented with a tricycle by Varnie, the former superintendent of the county, which he rejected.
“When the superintendent bought it, I noticed that it was small and could not help clean the streets, so I refused it, and Jerry Varnie has kept it in his house since 2022,” he said.
Furthermore, Varnie was contacted, and he agreed that the tricycle was bought as the result of the 2022 County Sitting and that Mayor Goll rejected it because it was small.
According to Varnie, his administration donated it to the current leadership of KCC in his name as the former Superintendent of the County.
Conclusion: Our research shows that the news about the donation of a tricycle by former superintendent, Jerry Varnie as a kind gesture is false. Our research revealed that the tricycles were brought by the government in response to a concession at the 2022 county sitting in Kakata city.
Written by: Patrick G. Moryor, Grant Fellow
