Rivercess County threatens lawsuit against LISGIS
-Gives 72-hour ultimatum to withdraw Census result
By Lincoln G. Peters
A Representative hopeful of RiverCess County District #2 Mr. Peter D. Wilson has threatened legal action against the Liberian Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) for releasing what he termed as bogus and unfair census results which put his county population at 71,500.
“We strongly condemned the so-called result from LISGIS Population capturing RiverCess County population at 71,500. We see this census report as bogus and unfair to the people of RiverCess County. We are giving LISGIS 72 hours to cancel the county result because that population doesn’t reflect us,” Mr. Wilson argued.
Speaking in an exclusive Interview with this paper over the weekend, Mr. Wilson said he gives LISGIS 72 hours to withdraw their bogus census result on grounds that they are not reflective of the county’s population.
“We are calling on our development partners, the international community and donors, as well as UNFPA to immediately intervention as the results from Rivercess has the propensity to undermine the Peace of Liberia.
“We’re law-abiding people, intelligence people, patriotic citizens. We don’t want trouble in Rivercess County. Let LISGIS withdraws its frustrations from the county with immediate effect, or we will take to the law for legal redress” Mr. Wilson said.
He called on citizens of Rivercess not to accept the LISGIS so-called result, adding that it has no true nature.
He noted that truly speaking their county is more populated even than Grand Kru County, but it’s saddening that their population remains little while Grand Kru and other counties’ population swing.
He believes that the provisional census results are designed to undermine the developmental agenda of the already underdeveloped county.
Mr. Wilson alleged that LISGIS enumerators in the county did not capture the county’s entire population because during the census enumerators were only capturing assessable communities along assessable roads.
He noted that many of them couldn’t reach the rural communities due to lack of incentives from and other logistics.
“I saw some of the enumerators complaining and even lamented about transportation to get motorbikes to reach the rural areas. This was also attributed to the inability of the Legislative Caucus of Rivercess County who massively refused to cooperate with their constituents,” Mr. Wilson explained.
Meanwhile, speaking on the County representation, he lamented that Rivercess County is under-represented, especially in the lower house.
He alleged that representative Bayron Zanwhea in his nine-year tenure has done nothing for the people of District #2.
” Development can’t come to our county amid psychological conflicts amongst all the lawmakers of Rivercess County. They’re not speaking to each other in both houses. There is no development in the absence of unity,” Mr. Wilson explained.
Meanwhile, he is urging citizens of the county to fully participate in the election process mostly when it comes to cooperating with the National Election Commission in getting their voters’ cards and participating in everything that has to do with the NEC.
