A journalist with Multimedia Group Limited, Kojo Yankson has responded to a section of the public chastising him for alluding in his report that the Atomic Junction gas explosion was caused by the activities of a khebab seller telling them to cut him some slack.

In a video which has gone viral, Kojo Yankson who was not at the gas station when the unfortunate incident occurred gave a blow-by-blow account saying, “There was a leak during a loading exercise from one of the tanks here in this compound. Gas was pluming up into the sky, blowing up very fast and everybody in the area noticed it…Members of staff at the gas station evacuated immediately and called the authorities. Within minutes, our chichinga stand operator decided to start work. In spite of the fact that there was escaping gas, he lit a flame under his Khebab and the flame shot up into the air and connected with the gas that was gathering in the air above the heads of all the people standing around…this flame connected with it [the gas] and set the entire sky above the people at this junction ablaze."

His condescending posture and failure to give attribution irked some people as they took to social media to express their disgust.

After being jabbed for more than twenty-four hours, Mr. Yankson has provided a link to a video which captures an eyewitness’ narration to buttress his report and adds that critics should “know better.”





Meanwhile, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), has said it had identified some safety lapses at the MANSCO gas filling station – the station that exploded last Saturday – and had in a letter prompted them to take measures in rectifying same.

Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, Hassan Tampuli, who made the revelation on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, said the letter was given to MANSCO through the Oil Marketing Company (OMC) that supplied it with LPG, Hills Oil.

“In the case of this particular station, we did the monitoring and inspection in April 2017, so it was part of Greater Accra inspection and monitoring exercise. We wrote to them a letter which was sent to them on 10th of July. What the letter said was that, we’ve done monitoring and inspection of your station and we come to the realization that they fell short of a number of things and we catalogued them. One of the things we said was that, their forecourt was too busy of activities which includes taxi rank, food vendors among others. So we thought that, that was unsafe so they should put in place the necessary safety measures,” Mr. Tampuli told Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show.

Mr. Tampuli further stated that three demands were made to MANSCO.

“First of all, we said there was too much activity on the forecourt especially around the cylinder filling and auto gas area. Secondly, more safety signs should be provided at the facility and thirdly, customers should be prevented from assessing the filling area, a separate waiting area must be provided,” he said.