Government won’t set up another probe into fire outbreaks

The government says it will not set up any independent enquiry into recent fire outbreaks apart from the machinery which has been set in motion to find the root causes of the spate of market fires.

It expressed disappointment at the call by the Minority in Parliament for an independent enquiry into the incidents when a crack team of investigators from the national security was already investigating the incidents.

At a briefing at the Flagstaff House in Accra yesterday, a Deputy Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mr Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, said “the government had already taken a bi-partisan approach on the issues.”

He said he was surprised about how the New Patriotic Party (NPP) always chose to deliberately give a partisan slant to important national issues.

“If not for mischief purposes, how do we then justify the setting up of another committee to investigate a matter that is being handled by independent efficient institutions such as the national security and American investigators,” Mr Mohammed queried.

He said it was unfair for a nation to continue to maintain partisan stance in all approaches and to continually “lampoon the state institutions”. He advised the NPP to exercise restraint as the nation awaited the reports of the investigations.

“Investigations into the fires in the country were not conducted by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) but a collaborative effort between the state and American investigators,” he said.

He said reports of the investigations so far conducted were being compiled and would soon be made available to Ghanaians.

Earlier this week, the Minority in Parliament called for an independent enquiry into the rampant fire outbreaks in the country, particularly at the markets.

The call by the Minority came on the heels of the latest fire that ravaged a section of the Accra Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB), popularly known as Abuja market, last Tuesday.

The latest fire came in the wake of several others which had gutted markets such as Kantamanto, Agbogbloshie, Makola and the Kumasi Central Market.

On Monday’s Special African Union (AU) Summit on Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, addressed by the Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, Mr Mohammed said the statistics revealed by the Vice-President on Ghana’s commitment to fighting the epidemics was mind-boggling.

Mr Amissah-Arthur announced at the summit that the budget earmarked for malaria control had increased from almost nothing before 2005, to around $110 million annually.


By Timothy Gobah, FLAGSTAFF HOUSE
Daily Graphic/graphic.com.gh
Ghana