Divisional Officer Grade I, Lilly Ashong Robertson, the Fire Commander of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly Fire Service station, has cautioned the public to avoid using mobile phones whilst cooking in the kitchen.
She said the radioactivity from phone calls should be prohibited in the kitchen because it had the propensity to ignite fire through the gas cylinders.
A statement from Integrated Recycling and Compost Plant (IRECOP) to the Ghana News Agency said Ms Robertson gave the caution at the maiden Safety Week celebration of the IRECOP in Accra.
She said many of the fire outbreaks were due to negligence and disregard for safety precautions.
According to the statement, a Divisional Officer Grade II E. Osei Owusu, who took workers and stakeholders of IRECOP through fire preventive and control measures, expressed the need for all organisations and homes to install fire extinguishers at their premises and learn to use them for emergency situations.
He gave the assurance that the National Fire Service was available in all regions and districts to train and assist people to keep them safe from fire outbreaks and advised employees to always ensure that all main switches were put off whenever they sensed a fire outbreak.
He asked workers of IRECOP, who collected wastes, to remember that the wastes were supposed to be stored under different temperatures and since their facility collected various wastes and stored before processing, it posed a threat for the outbreak of fire, hence the staff training was timely.
The statement said Ms Betty Brown Nyadu, the General Manager of IRECOP, said IRECOP began operations in April 2019 and had already recorded encouraging safety statistics.
The statement quoted her as saying: “In contemporary times, safety has moved from a voluntary option to an inevitable choice in management practice, thus-every manager should endeavour to take health and safety issues very critically to forestall the loss of lives and the payment of unnecessary claims.”
Source: GNA