Statement: NPP consoles families of Melcom disaster Victims

Nana Akufo-Addo, NPP Presidential Candidate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, Vice Presidential Candidate, the National Chairman, Executives and members of the New Patriotic Party join in congratulating and thanking our nation’s emergency service teams, the early, selfless and courageous volunteers, the specialist team from Israel, those who provided equipment and all others who responded so well to the challenge of the collapsed Melcom shopping mall disaster.

We give thanks to God that He enabled them to respond in the ways that they did and so helped to reduce the death toll and get so many survivors out of the wreckage of the building. It could have been so much worse, we are so grateful that it was not.

We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those who perished and to their fellow workers and colleagues.

We will continue to pray for the injured and other survivors.

While we support the efforts to find out If any person or persons broke the laws of the country and if so bring them to face the law, we urge that we go beyond this instinctive reaction.

We must not leave the matter with this building only. If we do, the deaths and the suffering will have been in vain.

We must set up a multi disciplinary/ sectoral team that will be tasked to (1) In the short term, assess and identify other buildings at risk and recommend actions to be taken to remove the risk and (2) Recognizing that we are on the threshold of vertical development, that is maximizing the return on land value by building upwards, we need to put in place practical methods of ensuring taller and larger building safety methods that will not delay projects and thus present temptations to circumvent codes and approvals but will be responsive to the drive of entrepreneurs and value of money.

We must not allow this matter to be treated as we continue to treat the need to improve safety on our roads .Week in , week out we witness horrific accidents most of which would be prevented if we would only implement some basic measures that we are all well aware of.

Let the ultimate price paid by Melcom workers be a sacrifice that will lead to the greater safety of our people and not fade into a nine days wonder and a wasted suffering.

……signed……

J.O. Obetsebi – Lamptey

(National Chairman)