*A truck passes on the Caldwell Bridge

By: Our Staff Reporter

The long-running worries of the residents of Caldwell, a major township located on the outskirts of the Liberian capital, will soon be relieved as the Ministry of Public Works has revealed that the aging and almost damaged bridge will soon be replaced by a new one.

Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Woods told journalists during a tour of the almost-damaged bridge that a decision has already been made on the bridge and that it was only a matter of coming up with the design plan of the bridge so that a competitive bidding process can commence for the construction of a new bridge.

Woods said the Liberian Government has decided already to give the township of Caldwell a new bridge.

“What we have to do now is to secure the consultant and the survey of the kind of the design for the bridge”, Minister Woods revealed after he and a team of Public Works officials as well as some members of the National Legislature and other government officials had inspected the Caldwell Bridge.

The Caldwell Bridge is a one-way bridge that allows only one flow of traffic in one direction at a time and its importance is that it connects Monrovia to two vital governmental infrastructures. They are the hydro-electric dam of the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC), which is responsible for supplying electricity nationwide and the White Plains Plant of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) responsible to supply running water nation- wide.

The Caldwell Road can be used to access Bensonville and Kakata, the provincial capitals of Montserrado and Margibi counties respectively.

The bridge’s collapse would mean thousands of people being cut off from Monrovia for there are thousands of residents living in the township, which is also considered to be one of the oldest settlements where freed slaves from the United States and the Caribbean settled during the formation of the Liberian nation in the 1800’s.