Fire destroys Kumasi office of VAT service

Kumasi, April 23, GNA - The staff and workers of the Kumasi office of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Service as well as other workers whose offices are located on the SIC building at Bompata in Kumasi are yet to come to terms as to how fire swept through the offices of the Service and destroyed everything.

The devastating fire, which was said to have started around 0001 hour on Wednesday, destroyed everything including computers, files, documents, cabinets, tables and chairs, televisions, radios, electrical fittings among others in the offices of the regional head of the service, his deputy as well as the general administration. Parts of the offices of the Ashanti Regional branch of Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) also got burnt down. It took personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service several hours to bring down the fire under control.

The cause of the fire outbreak is not yet known. Mr Akwasi Dwumah-Asante, Deputy Commissioner of VAT In-charge of Operations, said even though everything in the offices had got burnt, there was a back-up system which has all the vital information on clients.

The Service assured the public in a statement issued on Wednesday that it would continue to run normal business to the public. It said due to its computerized and adequate back-up systems in place, no client information had been lost and therefore, a lot of information was available for the reconstruction of traders' files. It urged the public, especially traders, to continue to file their returns.

It also assured the public that the police and the fire Service were conducting investigations into the cause of the fire outbreak.