Severe flooding in Liberia has led a group of senators to propose relocating the capital city away from overcrowded and poorly managed Monrovia, a suggestion met with a mixture of enthusiasm and hesitancy in the West African country.
According to the national disaster management agency, flash floods triggered by torrential rains between the end of June and early July left nearly 50,000 Liberians in urgent need.
The flood-prone capital was particularly badly hit, owing in part to overpopulation, a poor sewage system, and a lack of building regulation.
Meeting to discuss the persistent flooding problem, a senate joint committee in early July suggested establishing a new city to replace Monrovia.
“It’s a good idea because our current capital city is a mess,” said Chris Kpewudu, a young motorbike driver in the capital.
“There is garbage all over the city and also when it rains, there is flooding everywhere, but with a new city, it will be well laid out and our capital city could look like, or more than, Abuja,” he added.
Nigeria’s Abuja is one of a handful of planned capital cities on the African continent.
Tanzania’s capital Dodoma and Yamoussoukro in Ivory Coast were also established as administrative capitals towards the end of the 20th century, with all three cities occupying geographically central positions in their respective countries.
Monrovia is home to 1.5 million people and lies on the Atlantic coast of Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world.
The city is the economic, political, and cultural hub of the country, with the Freeport of Monrovia providing a gateway for Liberian exports including iron ore, rubber, and timber to reach the United States and Europe.
But the city’s poorly functioning infrastructure can barely keep up with its ever-expanding population.
The Ministry of Public Works says it was carefully reviewing the proposal, adding that the plan did not yet include an exact location for the move, and that any decision would come down to economic viability.
The ministry’s communications director T. T. Benjamin Myers said having a new city is capital-intensive.
He added that as a country, the national budget is still around $600 million, so having a new city will require a lot of technical, financial, and economic factors to be seriously considered.
