Liberia: Drivers Bemoan Police Extortion on Monrovia-Bomi Highway

BOMI – Road users have bemoaned the increasing rate of extortion by policemen assigned on the Monrovia-Bomi highway.

FrontPageAfrica gathered motorists and commuters, who shared their ordeals, stated that the problem persisted because of the complicity of the authorities and lack of deterrence in the system.

The reaction followed an investigation by FrontPageAfrica on a syndicate made up of policemen along the highway.

A FrontPageAfrica reporter who visited the scene observed for four hours as policemen exploited motorists.

According to one driver who asked for anonymity for fear of being targeted by the police officers, that three are too many “unnecessary” check-points along the route and they are made to pay L$100.00 at each of those check-point to and from their designated.

“My brother, imagine we pay eight hundred Liberian dollars for a gallon of gas, to and fro Boa-Waterside we normally use eight gallons, we carry six passage at a time that and each of them pay Ld$ 1,200. Some of us have to report to make to our bosses at the end of the day we get nothing for ourselves.”

He wants authorities of the Liberian National Police to institute measure to curtail such practice, because according to him, even the highway patrol police vehicle that should be monitoring are the main extortionists.

It was expected that with the improvement in the professionalism of the Police, many expected that their living conditions would have improved. 

However, the issue of extorting money from taxi drivers has been a serious challenge for authorities of the LNP to overcome.

Police extorting money from drivers has been an old-age problem dating from the days of former President Charles Taylor, where the late Joseph B. Tate served as Police Director up to the regime of former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf where former Police Directors including Munah Sieh, Marc Amblard and Chris Massaquoi all of whom could not curtail the problem.

Police officers are mainly seen at intersections, commercial areas like Waterside, Duala, and Red Light collecting LD$10, 20, 50 or 100 from drivers and bike riders alike.