Monrovia, Liberia: President George Manneh Weah has announced plans to transform Gibraltar, in Clara Town on Bushrod Island; commencing with the re-roofing of all the homes in order to spare inhabitants of impending embarrassment in the wake of the fast approaching rainy season.

 

Most of the homes in the community have been in the state of dilapidation as a result of being built over the past three or four decades.

 

Speaking Monday, April 23, 2018 during a visit to the Gibraltar Community, President Weah disclosed that he would embark on the re-roofing all the homes in the area. The Liberian Leader told residents of the community that he still has special love in his heart for them and the community. This is incensed by the fact that he has been working with them long before his election as President of Liberia. 

 

Though the President said he has been harboring plans to give the community a facelift, the raining season has reinforced the decision to undertake the project. He added that residents will be relocated for five months to allow reconditioning of their homes. 

 

“The arrangement will allow community dwellers to leave their respective homes and move to either a home of friend or family member for about five months to allow construction works take place before returning home,” the President said. “The project may go slow, but will not take more than five months to have every house in the community fully re-roofed for residents to return.” 

The Gibraltar neighborhood adjoining Clara Town on Bushrod Island is a historic community. It is where the President lived as a youth and began his electrifying football career that spanned over several years. 

 

According to the Liberian Leader, he has no regrets, neither is he feeling embarrassed to be raised in a slum community like Gibraltar, noting that all those born and raised in Gibraltar owe it to the community to do what is needed for the children. 

 

President Weah informed jubilant residents that his plan was to transform the community into a modern environment in which every resident will enjoy the comfort of life through the provision of basic social services.

 

The President said he wished the house of his late grandma will be left out of the re-roofing plan so as to reflect the true picture of the poverty he experienced before transitioning into an icon.

In the 1990s, the Liberian President constructed the George Manneh Weah Foundation School for children in the community to have access to quality education. The President said that the school, for several years, provided quality education for children, some of whom have since obtained higher education in the country. 

 

President Weah reminded the residents that he lobbied for the school to be renamed Gibraltar Community Academy when he got elected as Senator of Montserrado County in 2014. 

He also reminded the people of Gibraltar to see themselves as the symbol of sustainable reconciliation and unification in Liberia.