5 Townships,1 City For Nimba
By Fiona Benson
With the ongoing development drive, Nimba County is to likely benefit with five townships and a city. The House of Representative (HoR) has meanwhile, received several bills for enactment, seeking city and townships statuses. The bills include, “an Act to create the city of Garplay within Twah River Administrative District; an Act to create the township of Soe Senlay, Sroh Yoolar, and Beo Yoolar in Twah River District, and an Act to create the township of Zoe Siaplay in Zoe-Gbao Administrative in Nimba County.The following bills were on Thursday July 10, submitted to the plenary of the House by Nimba County District #4 Lawmaker, Ernest M. Manseah, who claimed to give back to his people through decentralization of power that will enable the locals to take ownership of their development initiatives.
Those areas in question are said to be capable of ‘positively contributing’ to the national budget.
“Those areas,” Rep. Manseah said, for legislative enactments are the townships named, and city status. They are currently having the potential qualifications for such a status, and it was upon that backdrop that I decided to undertake an initiative to submit these instruments when my people petition me to do so,” Rep. Manseah said.
With focus on the creation of Garplay City, Manseah told reporters that Garplay is a big community with over 5000 inhabitants. The residents are said to have basic social services, such as schools at all levels and health facilities.
He named a well-built security hub to include a police depot to combat potential crimes.
“As such, Garplay needs to be giving city status to enable the residents manage their own development projects in accordance with the local government Act of 2018.”
Manseah explained further that Nimba County District #4 has two administrative districts comprising of 85 communities. Out of those communities, only Zoe-Gbao Administrative District has two townships, while Twah River Administrative District, which controlled over 60 communities, has only one township, which according to him, prompted his action to proffer the bills for enactment.
“As I speak, the Twah River Administrative District, which shares boundary with Buuyao, is the current route to export cocoa through the Logatuo border to La Cote D’ivoire. To this, we are not benefiting from the revenue generated due to lack local government structure in the area,” Rep. Manseah added. He said, if these bills are passed into law, they will accrue lots of benefits for the locals, including jobs creation, and revenue generation.
Meanwhile, the instruments were sent to the committees on Internal Affairs, Good Governance, Judiciary and Ways Means and Finance to report within two weeks.