Grand Gedeh: I Inherited Lot of Problems-Says Betty Breeze-Dorr

Zwedru City Mayor, Betty Breeze-Dorr says she inherited lot of problems at the Corporation due to lack of competent leadership as a result of the prolonged civil conflict.

She named some of the problems at the Zwedru City Corporation or ZCC as need for a complete renovation of the entire City Hall, lack of accounting system, lack of control of the corporation properties, poor record keeping system, difficulties to establish what the corporation was or is earning from the GSM Company’s towers that are operational in Zwedru under her predecessor.

Madam Dorr was recently appointed by the President as City Mayor of Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County. She said her predecessor did not put in place record system thus making it absolutely difficult if not only impossible to know the sources of revenue for the Zwedru City Corporation.

“The records on file at the City Corporation do not show what was generated from the city motel which was constructed in 1974 under the administration of late President William R. Tolbert during that year’s Independent Day celebration in Zwedru,”  Madam Breeze-Dorr recalled. Tolbert was accompanied to the celebration at the time by The Gambia former President Sir Alhaji Dauda Jawara.

She noted that those facilities along with many others are intended to beef-up the financial strength of the City Corporation and taking them away, will make her administration a toothless bull dog. The repairs work at the Zwedru City Hall was started by the General Services Agency during President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s visit to Zwedru for her cabinet retreat in March, this year.

It can be recalled that when the President visited Zwedru in April 2007, the Zwedru City Hall was in a bad shape. During her second trip there this year, again for her cabinet retreat, it was the same.

As a result, she expressed her disappointment at the continual dilapidated condition of the building which prompted her to mandate the General Services Agency (GSA) to carry out proper repairs. The would-be-improved Zwedru City Hall is home to the 7th Judicial Circuit Court, County Attorney’s office, Drug Enforcement Agency, Internal Revenue, National Bureau of Investigation and the City Magisterial Court.

Meanwhile, City Mayor Breeze-Dorr said she has made an appeal to the County Attorney to hand over the present office he is occupying to her because it has been the original office for the Mayor since the construction of the building in 1974.

“Though he used his personal fund to renovate or improve the place, we will have to appeal to him to see reason as we are all public officials serving the general good and betterment of our people and country,” Mayor Breeze-Dorr said.