By William
Yaw Owusu
Thursday,
October 12, 2017
Cabinet is expected to meet today to deliberate on
the deadly gas explosion at Atomic Junction, Accra last Saturday that has
triggered spontaneous debate regarding how petroleum products are being handled
in the country.
Seven people, including a cameraman working with NET2 Television, who was stationed at
the presidency, Mohammed Ashiley Yakubu, were killed and 132 others sustained
various degrees of burns and were rushed to various hospitals for medical
attention.
Sources say the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government
is said to be considering far-reaching safety measures as lasting solution to
the spate of gas explosions and fire outbreaks, and the crunch meeting is expected
to set the tone.
Presidential
Pledge
After visiting the scene of the explosion and the
hospitals where the victims were receiving treatment, President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo, promised to act swiftly with the right policies to forestall
fuel and gas explosion in the country.
“The time for talking is over and that
the time for action is now!” President Akufo-Addo said after the visit.
“Cabinet will be meeting on
Thursday, October 12, 2017 and I believe, out of that meeting, the country will
know what our programme is, the comprehensive programme we intend to have to
bring such incidents to a stop,” he said.
He made a passionate appeal
to industry players “to recognise that we all have to make adjustments to be
able to guarantee the safety and security of our people, so these things do not
happen again.”
President Akufo-Addo
underscored, “I need the support and the cooperation of the people of Ghana to
make sure that the policies that we will be bringing out succeed, so that such
incidents become a thing of the past and not of our future.”
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who visited the
scene and the hospitals earlier said, “This is one too many. This is about the
eighth explosion that has happened in three years, and I think what Ghanaians
really want are solid policies to deal with this once and for all. We are going
to move to deal with it.”
He added, “It is not about committees upon
committees and nothing gets done. I think that we owe it to the country and the
government is going to take this very seriously. We are going to move quite
quickly to do it. It is not going to be one that you will wait weeks for it to
happen. It is going to happen relatively quickly.”
Report
Ready
It is now becoming clear that barring any hitches,
the investigation into the circumstances leading to the deadly gas explosion will
be concluded, and the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) is expected to submit
to government its report by the end of the week.
Public Relations Officer of GNFS, Prince Billy
Anaglate, said on Joy FM in Accra that
the report is “90 percent completed,” adding that the investigator had spoken
to all those whose accounts of the explosion were vital to the final report.
“We have done all that it takes. All the information
regarding the investigation has been taken, and we are close to submitting our
report,” he maintained.
Khebab
Theory
In the initial stages, Mr Anaglate described reports
suggesting that last Saturday evening’s inferno was started by a khebab seller
nearby as unfortunate.
No comments:
Post a Comment