The Director General of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Nana Agyeman Prempeh, has attributed the fire disaster at Kasoa Market in the Central Region last Sunday, which led to huge loses, to lack of accessibility into the facility.
He said congestion in the market prevented personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) from getting to the scene early to fight the fire.
He said this when he visited the scene on Monday, August 1 and interacted with the chiefs and people.
He was accompanied by Michael Mensah, the Municipal Chief Executive Mavis Hawa Koomson, the Member of Parliament for the area and the Minister for Development and Special Initiatives and staff of NADMO.
“Even though the cause of fire is not yet known, access to the market is not right,” Nana Prempeh said.
“Government has built a market for the traders where something like this happens the fire service personnel would be able to get to the scene with ease but the traders refused to move in.
“The fire Service personnel suffered before they were able to get access to the market.
“The Service had enforcement from Dansoman and other areas… but the way to get through to the market was an issue,” he stressed.
He charged the Municipal NADMO Office to be proactive in its duties and intensify education on fire preventive measures to the public.
He said the core duty of NADMO was to reduce the risks of disasters especially man made ones and not to share goods such as rice and mattresses when such misfortunes occur.
The fire started, which started at 0130 hours on Sunday, July 30 lasted for eight hours.
The GNFS got to the scene around 1530 hours but it took the personnel about an hour to get access to the scene.
About 350 stores were destroyed including other property.
Congestion caused Kasoa fire – NADMO
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