Business owners, bankers and employees of offices on Broad Street, in central Monrovia had a rude awakening on the early morning of Wednesday October 21, when they were told they could no longer park their vehicles in front of their offices and stores.
This was a new order from Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee, without a prior. Men dressed in city police uniforms had been deployed to enforce this overnight mandate. It came as a military order,” one lawyer told this writer. “Can you imagine the kind of country we are living in nowadays,” added another.
Both men work at a local law firm with its office directly situated on the main street.
Broad Street is one of the most busiest streets in Monrovia, and with no public or private parking lot in the country, many business owners, bankers and stores owners including customers usually park their vehicles on the sidewalk in front of their stores or offices.
But all that was changed on Wednesday, as officers from the City Mayor’s office patrolled the street ensuring that no one park his or her vehicle on the street. The officers refused to provide answers to office owners along the street directing them to the office of Mayor Koijee, saying that was a direct order issued by him.
“We have to avoid the traffic congestion,” said a spokesman of Mayor Koijee. Asked if there were any prior warning in the form of an official communication that as of this date authorities would have enforced this measure, Koijee’s public relations officer said no, but that “city parking attendants had been warning commuters for a week.”
He said, the abrupt action by his boss is part of the City Ordinance law and therefore insisted that the move is to restore some order on the street.
Early this year, just days before the Coronavirus lock down here, Koijee visiting the central Waterside Market instructed that all stores be painted in the country’s national color-red, white and blue.
His orders are immediate and abrupt and give no prior warning to business owners or users.
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