Paynesville City Corporation’s new Mayor, Robert Bestman, has sternly promised citizens that he will redirect the affairs of the corporation with innovation.
Paynesville City manages the affairs of the citizens of the municipality and is the second largest city corporation,next to the Monrovia City Corporation, with a very huge population. It is also a vote-rich city, according the National Election Commission (NEC) 2023 voter registration record.
As a tradition of city mayors, he or she cleans the city, but Mayor Bestman, who was just appointed by President Joseph N. Boakai, has news for the residents of Paynesville.
“Solid waste management is not the only ordinance for a city,” Mayor Bestman said. “We will be a working city that will be fully functioning; we will not just be a solid waste collection company.”
Mayor Bestman vowed to redirect the affairs of the entity in a creative manner, revealing that his administration will actively run the following arms of the city: regulatory, council, judiciary, court, and executive,and will provide education for the young people along with job opportunity.
Having been working in different sectors of the Liberian society for decades before his appointment, Mayor Bestman said business will no longer be as usual; ratherhe will run an inclusive municipality government. He disclosed that residents of Paynesville will pay for their garbage disposal, a condition that he said will enable the city corporation to raise funds and to keep the city clean.
As a custom in Paynesville, former mayors provided dumpsites where residents dumped their wastes and the city corporation collected them for disposal, without a dime payment. But he said it will not be business as usual.
He stated that Liberians will subscribe to paying for their garbage in his administration so that they can beautify their homes and city and stop praising other countries’clean cities when they travel and return to Liberia.
With innovation, he said that the Paynesville City Corporation is backed by law to collect its city tax, but will liaise with the Liberia Revenue Authority for itsimplementation. He promised the maintenance of city ordinance in every nook of Paynesville in a holistic manner.
The new mayor pointed out that his sanitation team will do a house-to-house engagement to educate residents how their garbage collection and payment will be. He added that his administration will put in place a system that will provide address for every resident in Paynesville and its environs for easy identification.
In a related development, Mayor Bestman has invited the public and media practitioners to his official induction ceremony on Friday at the Paynesville City Corporation Town Hall.