By By: Staff Writer
MONROVIA – The Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation is in the middle of a messy Facebook showdown after Managing Director Mohammed Ali fired back at former Deputy Managing Director for Technical Services McArthur Hilton, accusing him of leaving the institution in crisis. Hilton had earlier accused Ali of failing to deliver consistent water despite more than $20 million in revenue since January 2024 and questioned whether Ali could survive without MFDP bailouts. In his response, Ali said he would have ignored the post but Hilton’s attempt to lecture anyone on managing LWSC was “too ironic to go unanswered” given his role as Deputy MD for Technical Services under the CDC administration.
Ali claimed that when the CDC took over in January 2018 they inherited a clean slate with no salary arrears, yet despite receiving over $5 million annually in budgetary support from the Ministry of Finance under then Minister Samuel D. Tweah, Hilton’s administration accumulated $1.9 million in salary arrears and took an illegal LRD 20 million loan from a forex bureau in the name of paying salaries, a debt the current administration is still repaying. On the issue of pipeline repairs, Hilton claimed Ali spends $60,000 every time the 36-inch transmission line ruptures, but Ali countered that financial records show repairs sometimes cost as much as $90,000 under Hilton’s tenure while his administration has reduced costs to less than $10,000 with the last rupture repaired for a little over $6,000.
Ali also challenged Hilton’s praise of five trucks purchased under the Weah administration, stating that LWSC spent $899,800 on the vehicles with two sewer trucks costing $218,000 each and three water trucks $154,600 each, describing them as refurbished trucks imported from China that have become maintenance nightmares and are imposing huge operational costs on the corporation.
He further accused Hilton’s team of leaving LWSC with more than $9 million in vendor debt, recruiting over 287 employees between June 2021 and December 2023 without following established procedures which pushed monthly payroll to over $350,000 while revenue averaged less than $300,000, failing to pay NASSCORP 6% contributions, and leaving pensioners with 26 months of unpaid benefits. Ali questioned Hilton’s legacy as Deputy MD for Technical Services, noting that he could not sustainably manage Buchanan, Kakata and Zwedru water systems and left no serious body of technical reports or transformative infrastructure projects, while asserting that the current administration has constructed the Bopolu Water Supply System, commenced construction of Pleebo and Greenville Water Supply Systems, and is rehabilitating and expanding the Zwedru Water Supply System, in addition to embarking on the replacement of the aging 36-inch transmission main with a 48-inch pipeline for Monrovia and its environs with pressure testing now ongoing. “History matters, Chief. Records matter even more,” Ali wrote. “The LWSC you left behind was an institution in distress.
The current administration inherited that mess and is gradually restoring the Corporation to stability. And unlike Facebook posts, records do not lie.”
