Three Executive Functionaries to Face Senate’s Probe over Neglect of Urban Monrovia and Controversial Shutdown of Tertiary Learning Institutions

Monrovia, Liberia: The Liberian Senate has mandated the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) and the Ministry of Public Works (PMW) to appear before a committee-of-the-whole on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, to answer to an inquiry regarding what the Senate termed as neglect of urban Monrovia.

Simultaneously, the Senate, in the same vein, has instructed its joint Education and Judiciary committee to interrogate the National Commission on Higher Education over its recent decision to shut down fifty-three tertiary learning institutions across the country.

By: Abraham Sylvester Panto

The Senate’s MCC and MPW followed a searing report from the Senate Committee on Public Works and Rural Development, which took its cue from Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe of Bomi County.

Senator Snowe warned that Monrovia’s current state no longer reflects Liberia’s twenty-first-century ambitions, with the once-hallowed Palm Grove Cemetery serving as the most glaring testament to civic neglect.

The Senator's memorandum catalogued collapsing perimeter walls, weed-choked burial plots, and persistent public-health hazards that, he argued, affront national dignity, repel potential investors, and undermine multilateral branding efforts.

Senator Snowe’s concern has prompted the Senate Committee to conclude that only a coordinated executive-legislative intervention can restore credibility to the capital’s public spaces.

Endorsing the findings, the Plenary of the Liberian Senate has resolved that relocation of the cemetery constitutes an infrastructural imperative rather than a cosmetic whim, thereby ordering Minister Roland Layfette Giddings and John Charuk Siafa to appear with detailed relocation strategies, phased sanitation measures, and cost projections on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.

The Senate’s Chamber then swiftly shifted its focus when Lofa County Senator Joseph Jallah sought redress for students displaced by what he termed an abrupt regulatory “earthquake,” citing the recent action of the National Commission on Higher Education declaring that fifty-three higher-education providers lacked legal standing or had fallen below accreditation thresholds.

While acknowledging the necessity of quality assurance, Senator Jallah castigated NCHE Executive Director Dr. Edward Lama Wonkeryor’s blanket enforcement as evidence of chronic institutional disengagement or a sudden policy about-face insufficiently communicated to stakeholders.

Senate Jallah underscored that thousands of predominantly low-income students now face derailed academic trajectories, mounting financial liabilities, and significant psychological distress, while faculty, administrative personnel, and ancillary service providers confront instant unemployment, thereby magnifying socioeconomic repercussions across the country’s already fragile labor market.

Responding to those concerns, the Senate immediately mandated its joint committee to verify whether the Commission on Higher Education acted within its statutory confines, upheld procedural fairness, and weighed humanitarian consequences.

The Committee has been instructed to obtain a comprehensive roster of shuttered campuses, enrollment statistics, pre-closure accreditation statuses, evaluative benchmarks, notification timelines, and a clear remedial plan for affected learners and staff.

Plenary further required that the joint committee’s investigative findings, together with the MCC and MPW cemetery-relocation framework, return to the floor within thirty days for potential legislative remedies.