Enough of the rhetorics, please!
The roll call of landmark facilities gutted by fire is inexhaustive. In the last few years, fire has razed down a number of important buildings in Accra and other parts of the country.
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Fire outbreaks in our markets are not a new phenomenon, except that the devastation in recent years has been heart-breaking.
The list of major facilities gutted by fire include the Foreign Affairs building, former President J.J. Rawlings’s house, the Mallam Market, the Central Market in Kumasi, the Kokompe Market, Sodom and Gomorrah and a few industrial plants.
In terms of cost to the nation and individuals, it runs into billions of cedis in damage done to goods and loss of business opportunities.
Perhaps, the latest fire at the Kantamanto Market last Sunday will stimulate serious discussion to stem the fire outbreaks.
By the rules, no structure can go off the ground without the approval of the statutory authorities, such as the district assemblies, the Town and Country Planning Department and other agencies of state.
Unfortunately, spatial development in our cities is in one big mess, thereby reducing Accra and other cities into big slums.
It is sad that the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) was unable to put out the fire to save any of the major landmark buildings and markets destroyed by fire.
The GNFS has its own challenges. Now that some of the challenges, such as logistics, appear to have been dealt with somehow, the personnel blame their inability to fight fires on non-functional fire hydrants.
We think there is too much rhetoric about plans to resolve the ills of our society. The authorities, including our governments, have always set up committees to probe fire outbreaks, but such committee reports are not acted upon.
Vice-President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur, on his visit to the fire scene at Kantamanto, said, among other things, that the Ministry of the Interior had been asked to investigate the causes of fires in Accra and Kumasi and advise the government on steps to be taken to forestall future occurrences.
For now, we expect that the government will run with any such report to institute reforms that will put a foreclosure to the perennial fire outbreaks.
The Daily Graphic thinks that some of the disasters in the country are self-inflicted and because nobody wants to stir the hornets’ nest, we look on in helpless endorsement.
There are no thoroughfares in our markets, so in the event of fires or other disasters, emergency services cannot reach the victims with assistance.
The by-laws of the district assemblies prohibit cooking in the markets, but this is a common spectacle. Also, illegal electricity connections abound in the markets. These practices may be the causes of fire in the markets.
The Daily Graphic has said time and again that our country will make no progress if the laws fail to bite. Society progresses with a balance between the stick and carrot exercise of authority.
We have seen it in the decongestion exercises carried out by chief executives of Accra across governments when governments felt uncomfortable with the decisive action of the assembly to rid the city of hawkers on the pavements.
The Daily Graphic can affirm that the rhetoric will not change the fortunes of the country for the better, for which reason we urge our leaders to back their words with action, for action speaks louder than words.