Slipway residents descends on Rep. Gray

A group of concerned residents of the slipway community opposite Water Street in Monrovia have descended on Montserrado County District #8 Representative Acarous Gray for describing himself as the architect of development in the community.

“We want to emphatically clarify that at no time did Rep. Gray ever undertake any project in our community. He must immediately stop misleading the Liberian people and district #8 constituents’’, the concerned residents expressed.

According to a press release signed by the Secretary General of the group, Kelvin Y.B. Volar, Jr. and approved by Chairman Mohammed A. Kenneh, at no time Rep. Gray had ever built any district office in Slipway Community as he claims.

“It is the  former community leadership headed by Mr. Page C. G. Boayue in consultation with the community dwellers, who proposed to the Superintendent, Mrs. Florence Brandy and development superintendent, Mr. Lamah, for a library to be built in the community as our share of the district development funds”, the aggrieved residents said in the release.

They continued that the library project was monitored by Rep. Gray because of his oversight responsibility as it relates to developmental agenda in the district, adding, “Today, Representative Gray is now claiming the library as his district office, something that we see as a form of disservice; an act of serious embarrassment to residents and students of this community. How can a reading room be used as a district office? If Representative Gray wants to boast of a district office, he should have erected one, but not to misinform the public at the detriment of our people.”

Representative Gray has come under intense pressure from his constituents for allegedly squandering funds raised in the district to assist victims of the Ebola Virus Disease, but the District #8 lawmaker has repeatedly dismissed the claim as untrue.

Moreover, the group said Rep. Gray has totally abandoned the community in his legislative agenda, refusing to identify with them during the serious economic calamity caused by the Ebola virus disease (EVD) which has also taken away many lives in Slipway.

“… it is upon this backdrop that we have decided to have Rep. Gray informed that as of today, he will be denied entry to the community on the basis of attending to district matters at his so-called district office, and we are very clear. We want him to also know that he is not representing certain group of people or communities at the national legislature, but rather district #8 of Montserrado County of which Slipway/Crown Hill Community is no exception. Furthermore, he has built confidence in few surrogates, who have ill advised him which has greatly contributed to his poor performance as a lawmaker.”

 The group  of concerned residents said it is also frustrating and unfortunate to know that Rep. Gray, who strongly spoke against corruption and ills in government prior his ascendancy as a lawmaker, has been baptized in the satanic pool of corruption by allegedly embezzling LD300,000.00 and US 15,000.00 of district #8 Ebola task funds.

They said interestingly, money that would have been used to save the lives of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, children and relatives, who lost their lives to the killer disease in district #8, was used for selfish and personal aggrandizement of the lawmaker.
 
The group claimed Rep. Gray’s body guards beat on law abiding citizens under the canopy of advocacy for the right things to be done.

“In so doing, we will like to use this medium to call on friends and family of Rep. Gray; the Superintendent of Montserrado County, Mrs. Brandy; national government and the general public to quickly intervene in this situation because any attempt for any of Rep. Gray’s reckless bodyguards to touch any residents of our community, we will be left with no other alternative but to  introduce a contemporary form of defensive method that Rep. Gray will not easily forget in his entire life”, they threatened.

By Bridgett Milton