STOP THESE FIRE OUTBREAKS

Page 7: Daily Graphic, April 17, 2012. THE country was on Sunday night hit by another fire outbreak at the Kumasi Central Market, during which goods and property worth hundreds of thousands of Ghana cedis were destroyed. Fire outbreaks have become an annual ritual in most of our markets and yet there appears to very little effort to rebuild the markets to modern standards, especially making them accessible to fire fighters in eventualities such as last Saturday’s incident. From the Kumasi Central Market, the Makola and Kantamanto markets, both in Accra, the Kotokuraba Market in Cape Coast and other markets, we think the fire outbreaks in our markets have become far too many and our failure to address the challenges is not helping us. Since 2007, the Kumasi Central Market has recorded fire outbreaks, with two major ones in 2009 and 2011. We do recall that in the heat of the 2009 fire outbreak, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) announced plans to rebuild the market. As usual, investigations have started to establish the cause of the fire and appropriate recommendations made. What is worrying is the fact that members of the public are never made aware of the findings of investigative committees so that in the event of the assemblies failing to act, individuals could take personal action to protect themselves and their goods. The Chief Executive of the KMA, Mr Samuel Sarpong, has again given an assurance and pledged his commitment to see to the redevelopment of the market. The Daily Graphic thinks that the weak regulatory and supervisory systems in place at our assemblies are contributing to this annual disaster. It appears that our assemblies are just interested in raking in revenue from traders but fails to protect the hands that provide them with the revenue. We do not think that any of our markets has been insured by the assemblies, nor have the traders themselves insured their goods. Consequently, in the event of disasters, both the assemblies and the traders have to think of where to raise funds to rebuild the markets and start their businesses. The assemblies are paying attention to curative measures rather than preventive measures. We believe that the assemblies, before allocating stores or stalls to traders, must educate and encourage them to insure their goods. The regulatory authorities must undertake continuous inspection of the markets to assess the gadgets and equipment used there. The wiring systems of the markets are themselves questionable and we believe continuous assessment will prevent the frequent outbreak of fire. The Daily Graphic believes that if the Kumasi Central Market were accessible, personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) could have salvaged some of the burnt stores, stalls and property there. Very often, we blame the GNFS for failing to respond to distress calls, but in last Friday’s fire in Kumasi, for two hours the tenders remained static while the fire continued to rage because fire personnel could not get access to the area. We urge the assemblies to take urgent steps to redevelop the markets that are inaccessible and bring them in tandem with modern standards. They should also prevent traders from cooking in the markets, as sometimes this is the cause of the frequent fire disasters. While sympathising with the traders who lost their goods in the disaster, we urge all traders to endeavour to take insurance policies to cover their businesses, so that in the event of any such disaster all will not be lost.