SANITATION IS VISIBLE, BUT SYSTEMS ARE WHAT MAKE A CITY WORK”: Monrovia Mayor John-Charuk Siafa Says His Administration Is Fixing City Hall From Behind the Scenes With 30 New Regulations, Digital Revenue Controls, 170+ Staff Trained at Harvard, Georgia Tech, MIT-Level Institutions

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SANITATION IS VISIBLE, BUT SYSTEMS ARE WHAT MAKE A CITY WORK”: Monrovia Mayor John-Charuk Siafa Says His Administration Is Fixing City Hall From Behind the Scenes With 30 New Regulations, Digital Revenue Controls, 170+ Staff Trained at Harvard, Georgia Tech, MIT-Level Institutions

BY: Rufus Divine Brooks Jr.

MONROVIA, Liberia — Monrovia City Mayor John-Charuk Siafa says his administration’s biggest achievement is not what citizens see on the streets, but the invisible systems he is rebuilding inside City Hall to make city services work and last.

Appearing on the OK Morning Rush on Thursday, Mayor Siafa said while sanitation remains a major public concern, his priority since taking office has been to rebuild the foundation of governance at the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC).

“Sanitation is a key concern for people, but one of my priorities has been to rebuild systems behind the city services,” Mayor Siafa said.

He disclosed that the MCC has passed about 30 new regulations aimed at fixing governance lapses that had weakened service delivery for years.

“For systems to be effective, the governance issue must be fixed And those are things people cannot see — clearer accountability, better revenue controls,” he said.

On revenue reform, Siafa said he instituted a strict digital payment policy upon taking over City Hall.

“I said no money will be collected unless we do it digitally.

There’s an app, you must pay to the bank or you must pay to mobile money,” he said, noting the move was intended to block leakages and improve transparency.

The Mayor also emphasized workforce professionalization as central to his agenda, arguing that vision alone cannot transform the city without a competent team.

“No matter how much vision you have, you need a team. That team doesn’t come by magic. You must build that team,” he stated.

According to Siafa, the MCC has invested heavily in capacity building, training over 170 staff both locally and abroad, a record he claims no previous mayor has matched.

Last year alone, we had about 20 of our staff go to EML for training.

This year we have 42 going abroad and we have our IT doing a full master’s program with Georgia Tech — Georgia Tech is second to MIT.

We have a number of them going to Japan for training.

We brought the University of Pretoria in, We have seven people who went to Harvard, Bloomberg, and the list goes on,” he said.

He said the focus on training and partnerships is about sustainability, ensuring that reforms at City Hall outlive his administration.

Building a system has been one of the key things we’ve been focusing on. Because we know with that, it helps a little bit with sustainability.