Mary Broh

Mary Tanyonoh Broh (born in 1951) is the former mayor of Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. She first served the Liberian government in March 2006 as the Special Projects Coordinator for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's executive staff. In 2007, she was promoted to direct the Passport Bureau in a successful attempt to curtail and eliminate corruption and bribery within the division. In 2008, Broh became the Deputy Director of the National Port Authority. In February 2009, she was selected to serve as Acting Mayor of Monrovia in place of the previous mayor, Ophelia Hoff Saytumah, in the President's effort to legitimize the Monrovia City Corporation's (MCC) administrative and financial management. Although Broh was seated in February 2009 by appointment, rather than by the usual democratic election process, she was not officially confirmed by the Liberian Senate.

Broh has worked to clean up the capital city with measures that include city-wide litter reduction campaigns aimed to increase public awareness of litter, sanitation, and overall public health. In October 2009, she implemented the revised City Ordinance No. 1, originally established by the MCC in 1975 to address public health, sanitation, and street vendors. The revision sought to address issues that have accumulated in the capital over the last two decades such as overflowing and unsanitary trash, makeshift structures and unregulated street vendors who sell foodstuffs to locals and tourists alike. She has also worked closely with government officials to address squatting, political corruption, and overpopulation, mainly caused by internally displaced persons that flocked to Monrovia from the hinterland during the civil wars that erupted in the 1980s and 1990s under Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor.

Not long after her appointment as Acting Mayor of Monrovia by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Mary Broh struggled to gain the confidence of the Legislature as her prolonged "acting" status was called into question on several occasions. Mary Broh's efforts to clean and improve the capital's landscape through task force initiatives rankled various elements of the community. In September 2009, Muslim residents in Monrovia expressed concern over the Special Presidential Task Force to clean the city streets after an incident at the Benson Street mosque created an inconvenience for worshipers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

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