Blame Municipal Assembly for the intensity of Odawna fire - GFS

The Ghana Fire Service (GFS) has indicated that their efforts to quickly douse the fire at the Odawna Market yesterday was partly hindered by the Municipal Assembly.

The Public Relations Officer of the GFS, Ellis Robinson Oko has mentioned that the Municipal Assembly refused to stick to the original layout of the market and this prevented them (GFS) from having access to the market yesterday.

“We were part of the original plan of the market but the assembly refused to go by it. Because of the revenue they sought to make, they gave various spots to shop owners. They allowed many containers to spring up at the place, destroying the plan and blocking the access roads”.

According to the GFS, they had given recommendations to the assembly after the last fire that gutted the market but they were not adhered to.

“Our findings and recommendations on the last fire were shared with the assembly but they didn’t listen to us. We told them the containers at the market were too many and had blocked access roads. We told them to remove some containers but they didn’t”, he added.

He reiterated that the recent fire at the Odawna market raged on for long, not because of the inability of GFS but because the Municipal Assembly was focused on revenue and not safety. “The containers had blocked access roads and prevented the fire tenders from reaching the fire on time”.

Hundreds of stalls at the Odawna Market at Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra caught fire at dawn on Wednesday.

The fire, which eyewitnesses say raged on for hours, has left residents of the area and shop owners at the market, also known as the Pedestrian Shopping Mall in shock as they lost thousands of cedis worth of goods.