Friday, 14th March, 2025
Hon Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi
Asante Akim Central
Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to make this brief Statement on the mishappenings; the death and destruction of property within Asante Akim Central.
Mr Speaker, on 5th March, 2025, between the hours of 18:30 and 19:00, Asante Akim Central experienced an unfortunate— On the 5th of March, 2025, between the hours of 18:30 and 19:00, Asante Akim Central experienced an unfortunate fire outbreak and explosion that were close to the Appiatse incidence on 20th of January, 2022. The cause of the fire started with lightning and thunderstorm. The lightning struck a shop at Odumase Zongo which caught fire. There were other shops adjourned to this particular shop and the fire extended to these other shops. Unfortunately, there were in these shops, the presence of highpressure vessels, and other high combustibles.
The fire burnt rapidly as the high combustibles exploded rapidly to the nearby houses and since the houses contained high pressure vessels, it resulted in adding to the flames that had engulfed the town. A good Samaritan invited the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) which is cited about 300 meters from the place of the disaster. The GNFS was there on time at exactly 19:08 hours, and were preparing to mount a fight of the fire.
A young man benevolently informed the Fire Service Personnel to reverse the vehicle to safety. While the young man was leading the fire appliance to reverse to safety, there was another explosion that hit the fire appliance with registration number WRT FS 318. In the process, the innocent young man was hit by the explosion and dismembered.
He was rushed to the hospital but died that evening at the hospital. The vehicle of the GNFS was severely damaged and five (5) personnel of the GNFS including the pump operator were severely injured. The crew of the GNFS were therefore overpowered by the events and quickly invited personnel of the GNFS from Ejisu to fight the fire. Three lives were lost on that day; Vincent Opoku aged 18, died at the Asante Akim Central Hospital, Florence Boakye aged 58, also lost her life, and Akwasi Mintah aged 25, also lost his life. His charred body was found next to the burnt shops thereafter.
A fourth person, named Rabiu Suleman aged 18, who was also hit by the explosion and rushed to the Agogo Presbyterian Hospital and was later transferred to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) also died on the 10th of March, 2025. Eleven members including the five (5) firefighters were severely injured. About thirty (30) domestic institutional and commercial buildings as well as other properties were totally or partially destroyed. Some of the injured persons are in critical condition at KATH.
Mr Speaker, we are grateful to the Ashanti Regional Minister, the Ashanti North Regional Police Commander, the Regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Mineral’s Commission as well as the National Security and major stakeholders who have visited the scene and helped investigate and sympathise with the affected. The shop owners that had explosives were invited by the Police and investigations are ongoing. I believe the law shall take its course. Mr Speaker, the firefighters are also receiving medical attention at various hospitals.
Mr Speaker, I now call on the Government, members of the public, philanthropists, and organisations to turn to Asante Akim Central and assist the affected people at Odumase. It is my prayer that the law enforcement agencies would investigate and recommend the handling of explosives within Odumase, Asante Akim in general, that is the Constituency, as well as the rest of the country, to prevent future occurrence of this unfortunate incident. May the souls of the innocent that have departed rest in perfect peace.
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Hon Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings
Korle Klottey
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is Zanetor.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the Statement made by our Hon Colleague. The incidence of fires occurring in our communities across our constituencies and markets is becoming all too common.
And, Mr Speaker, it is starting to cause great concern to all of us, especially given the level of damage, the death toll, and the effect to livelihoods to our constituents. I would like to take the opportunity to offer my condolences to the families of the bereaved, as well as wish a speedy recovery to the personnel and other persons who played their role in bringing the fire under control.
Mr Speaker, there is a need for urgent retooling of the Ghana National Fire Service. Time and time again, when they come before the Committee on Defense and Interior, the budgets that they require in order to be able to fulfill their mandate and protect our citizens and properties is never up to the level that is required. And time and again, they face problems in even accessing some of the places where there are fires, because certain rules and regulations are not adhered to when it comes to the building of certain structures.
Mr Speaker, the illegal electricity connections that are also made are key to what is happening in our various markets, as well as the fact that sometimes the fire hydrants are not accessible to the Ghana National Fire Service.
Mr Speaker, if we indeed are to see a change in the trend that we keep seeing, then there has to be an all-ofGovernment and all-of-sector approach to how these issues are approached. I do add my voice to the maker of this Statement with regards to what has to be done as a matter of urgency to actually curb this incident of fires.
Mr Speaker, in 2020, there was a similar incident that happened in my Constituency, in the Novotel market, after which promises were made for this market to be reconstructed. As we speak today, this market has still not been reconstructed. The most recent incident of a market under fire was with the Kantamanto market, and we have seen what happened, the level of destruction.
Mr Speaker, this has to be looked at. All our markets have to be made really friendly to those there. There have to be regular fire drills. People in communities must know what to do when there is a fire. There has to be compulsory installation of fire extinguishers. Even here in Parliament, Mr Speaker, we do not know the fire drills because we are not taken through them. We are not clear on what the exit strategy should be in the case of an emergency.
Mr Speaker, as a nation, we need to take more seriously what to do in the event of these occurrences. It is all well and good not to put the systems in place until something goes wrong, until people die, until people’s lives are damaged, or people are injured. We keep coming back to the Floor and lamenting about these issues, but we are not addressing them. I really appeal to our Minister for the Interior to really take a close look at what is being done in terms of supporting the Ghana National Fire Service, and the local government with regards to what happens at the level of the Assembly, so that they are empowered to do what is right, and not to take some kind of favoritism approaches as to who is going to be asked to abide by the law and who is allowed to get away with infringing on the rules and regulations regarding building and access.
Mr Speaker, I hope that given the tragedy of what is being brought on the Floor today, we shall use this as a springboard to do what is right across the country to provide more security in terms of prevention of fires and how we address these emergencies in our various communities.
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Hon John Ntim Fordjour
Assin South
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I rise to support the Statement and to commend the maker of the Statement, the Hon Member for Asante Akim Central, a very respected Member of Parliament, and to join my Colleagues in extending sincere condolences and sympathies to the families of the lives that have sadly been lost through this tragic incident, and also to signal our sympathies for the speedy recovery of the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service, as well as some residents of Odumase who are currently recovering at the various hospitals.
Mr Speaker, with this Statement, we understand that the 5th of March was a sad day for Odumase, and indeed a sad day for Ghana. The nature and the scale of disaster is one that cannot be overemphasised. We have seen a similar scale of disaster of this nature in this country. We saw one happening at Appiatse so sadly in 2022, where about 17 lives were lost in that instance. In this particular incident, we are told that currently, some five persons have sadly lost their lives and others are in critical conditions. Properties have also been razed down in explosion. But the properties and stores may be reconstructed, but the lives lost cannot be recovered.
So, it is important that as this is brought to the fore, we follow up keenly, with lessons drawn from it scaled up across the country to be on the preventive side to ensure that the regulations regarding the storage and sale of explosives are well enforced across the country, and we do not wait for another incident of this nature to reoccur.
But Ghana has demonstrated, Mr Speaker, to be a state of empathy, a state that sympathises with its citizens whenever such incidents occur. Reference is made to the Appiatse incident where the state led efforts in reconstructing the entire village and restoring livelihood to the community. The same example was demonstrated a few days ago when in the 2025 Budget which was read by the Minister for Finance, we found expression in that same Budget, an allocation of GH₵242 million to supporting victims of the Akosombo Dam Spillage. Same was also seen in the allocation of GH₵200 million to support the victims of the tidal waves affecting communities in Ketu South.
These are very commendable budgetary allocations. Equally deserving are the people of Odumase. It is my appeal that the state, consistent with that same sympathy, would allocate a commensurate budgetary allocation emergency fund of its kind to support restoring livelihood to those who have lost their properties and to even support the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service who are currently pending recovery, who may never be able to return to work again, and to restoring the equipment that were destroyed in the process.
But just as my Hon Colleague who earlier spoke has indicated, the Ghana National Fire Service, a time has come, more than ever before, that a complete retooling, befitting of a state as Ghana is done, to ensure that in every district we have the right equipment and fire tender available to be able to fight such incidents promptly, as and when they happen. It took the support of the Ghana National Fire Service Station from Ejisu to travel all the way to support when the Fire Service at Odumase were overpowered.
So, with these few words, Mr Speaker, consistent with the rules of this House, may I invite you to refer this Statement further to the Committee on Defence and Interior and jointly with the Committee on Finance to follow up on the investigations and subsequent support that the State could give in supporting the victims of this sad incident.
I thank you, Mr Speaker.
Hon Fred Kwesi Agbenyo
Guan
Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this particular Statement.
Let me start off by thanking the maker of the Statement and also add my voice in sympathising with those who are injured and also to the bereaved families who have lost their families as a result of this fire outbreak. Mr Speaker, fire outbreaks have created a lot of problems for people in this country, and I would like to focus especially on our markets. Recently, we heard about how fire that raided the Kantamanto Market. I drove past there a week after the incident only to realise that they were rebuilding the place again.
The same people working over there were not there when the incident occurred, have gone back, contracted their own carpenters, and they are putting up structures again. Meanwhile, we all know the difficulty at that particular market. The access route is a major problem. To even access water hydrants becomes a problem. Anytime there is a problem over there, access for the Ghana National Fire Service personnel is a problem.
I would have thought that, with what has happened right now, at least, we would get experts to come and demarcate the place very well and put up the structure in such a way that when a similar incident occurs in the future, we would be able to mitigate the effect that we normally see. Unfortunately, we have allowed the situation to continue. We do not pray it happens next time, but if it happens again, we will return to radio and television stations and then to the floor of the House to lament and complain.
Meanwhile, we are not putting in place the measures that we are supposed to have, to curtail this from happening. It is important that we pay a particular attention to it. Our markets are simply too crowded. We do not create access routes. When we are putting up markets and we know that the place is always very congested, at least, experts should be there.
We should know demarcated places for water hydrants and places that the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service can move through when there is a problem. From the Statement that was made by the Hon Member, I am wondering why we keep explosives in our homes and shops. I think that the Ghana National Fire Service would need to intensify education on these things. The way and manner in which we keep these things, even with cylinders that we use in our houses—
When one goes to some homes, the cylinders are kept in the kitchen. So, when there is a problem, one does not even know how to run out of the problem. I am sure we can educate the people, so that they can keep the cylinders outside of the kitchen by perforating a hole through the wall into the kitchen. So, that when there is a problem, the cylinder is in an open place with a lot of air, so that it does not trap the people in the kitchen.
Mr Speaker, one of the concerns I have has to do with what is happening recently that anytime one puts up a house, it has to be guarded with burglar proofs. Some way, somehow, all of us are now living in cages. In our houses, there are burglar proofs on windows, the entrance and almost everywhere. So, when there is fire, one does not even know where to exit from, from the house. In some other jurisdictions—
We are so scared of armed robberies, and we do not care about our safety when it comes to fire, among others. I do not know what we can do about it. We need to go back and look at the security architecture. Everybody who travels around does not see a similar thing. Doors are open, and they do not even close them. But because we are so scared of armed robberies, we have put these metal barricades all over on our windows, doors and so on. So, anytime there is a problem, we do not even know where to run to.
Mr Speaker, I think that we really need to sit down and find out how we can manage these fire issues. Before the rain started, it would interest one to know the number of farms that were consumed by fire: cocoa farms, plantain farms and others. Anytime we get into harmattan, people who tap palm wine and indulge in other farming activities, before we realise, set the entire place ablaze and burn down people’s properties. Recently, in my constituency, in a town called Likpe Kukurantumi, I think some people were chasing a rat and they set someone’s farm ablaze. Before we realised, the farm was on fire and it even entered into the community and burnt down houses of people.
Mr Speaker, this fire issue is a very serious issue. We need to set up a Committee to find a lasting solution to it, especially the first one I spoke about regarding the markets. How do we control fires in the markets? How do we check the houses that we are putting up these days with the whole place being barricaded with these metal pillars among others? So that we can, at least, place some safety nets when there is a fire outbreak?
Mr Speaker, once again, let me really commiserate with the people who lost their lives and their families and pray that Government moves in quickly and see how we can give them some support and comfort.
Mr Speaker, thank you.
Hon Dominic Bingab Aduna Nitiwul
Bimbilla
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this Statement.
Mr Speaker, it is a sad Statement. It is a sad Statement in the sense that three people lost their lives on that day. They were very young people with a middleaged woman whom, I still believe, would have had something to contribute to society.
The Hon Member just said that in his constituency, 11 other people, including five firefighting officers were severely injured and about 30 institutional and commercial buildings as well as domestic buildings were destroyed. It is very similar to what happened at Appiatse, where Government had to set up a committee to totally rebuild the place for the people.
I just hope that the current Government would take this matter up and do a similar thing for the constituents of my good Friend, Hon Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi, to give the people some respite and relief. I can imagine the difficulties that the people are facing: that they wake up and through no fault of theirs, they have no place to sleep and have lost everything. School kids have lost their certificates. People who were working have lost virtually everything and are left with nothing other than what they are wearing.
Mr Speaker, if one has gone through such a traumatic situation, then one would understand that it is very traumatic. It is something that one would not wish even their worst enemy to go through: that he wakes up and has nothing other than what he is wearing. He has no money, no assets, no life and no record; the person has virtually nothing. That is what some of these people are facing today. To the extent that people have lost their lives—
Mr Speaker, why did we not learn from what happened in the past at Appiatse, and allow for a similar thing to happen? That we are keeping explosives not in a confined environment, but in our houses and in our shops? Why is that possible? How is this even possible? I remember when the Appiatse explosion happened, we took a deliberate decision that all explosives, especially for the mining companies, should be traceable from the ports, through the storage and to the user. It should all be traceable, so that we can trace and know exactly where each explosive is.
Mr Speaker, explosives are not just used for mining. Explosives can be used for many other things that can be very detrimental to you and me in terms of security. Because somebody can take an explosive and make an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) out of it, and create chaos in this country. I am a bit worried that explosives are still being kept as if they are normal commodities; they are not. They are a security threat, and we should be worried about it.
Mr Speaker, the other matter that this Statement raises is very important. How do we plan our settlements to the extent that when one house catches fire, then we have 30 houses all razed down? A structure or a kiosk catches fire and about 30 houses are razed down? The personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service are having difficulty accessing the place. Even in reversing, somebody gets injured and they also get injured in the process. What vehicles are they using? I know that there have been attempts to resource the Ghana National Fire Service.
I think the major overhaul happened between 2013 and 2014. I still think that the Ghana National Fire Service needs a lot of capital injection to encourage them to have, at least, good equipment to help us; one can never tell. I want to support the contribution made by Hon Zanetor. All she was asking is, even as Members of Parliament, how many of us have fire extinguishers in our offices? How many? If there is a fire today in our offices, how many of us would have fire extinguishers to be able to put it out in our own offices, not to talk of in our cars? In our cars, maybe, because of the police, we may have. But how about in our offices? Do we have them even in our homes?
Even if we have it, do we even know how to use it? It is important for us as Ghanaians to be able to do things and know what can save our lives and property. Because for a lot of people, if they had some of these equipment, they would have been able to save themselves. In those days, our people used to have communal spirit. So, when a house is burning, one would see everybody fetching water and running there to quench it.
But that communal spirit is virtually disappearing because of mistrust. And that is the reason people are building wall around their houses. Walls that are higher than even the building itself and they themselves are trapped in that prison they call a wall. Because when, God forbid, a thief enters their house through the gate and locks the gate, they are dead because nobody can see them or that building. Nobody can see what is happening inside them and many people have died because of that. It is because the communal spirit is gone.
Because I do know that in those days, if a person attacks a Ghanaian’s house, several people would rush to find out. But today, when somebody shouts in their houses, the first thing is to go and lock the gates. That is the sort of society we live in. The first instinct of one’s neighbour is to lock his gates and close his windows because he does not want to get involved. But in those days, it was not like that. In the days of our forefathers, our grandfathers, they would rush to find out what is happening to assist their neighbour. Today, it is totally different.
So, Mr Speaker, there are several things that this Statement teaches us and that is why I want to support a call by the Hon Member that he should refer this Statement to the appropriate Committee. This is so that they would take it up, especially the Committee on Defence and Interior, and investigate it. This is because it seems to me that we have not learnt from what happened in the past. Because if we had learned, then the storage of explosives would not have been in their kiosk. Then the way the Ghana Fire Service themselves even responded would not have been, even though we want to thank them and praise them for their response.
Even the people at Asante Akim South and Konongo, were getting injured, and those in Ejisu had to rush to come. Of course, there was a small distance and because of traffic, sometimes, their response time is a bit slow. But Mr Speaker, it tells us that we did not learn what happened after the Appiatse explosion. To the extent that an explosion happens and now we have a similar situation on our hands. Are we going to allow a third situation to happen before we would be able to learn? No, we should not allow that. So, if the Committee investigated it, of course it was not a parliamentary committee — I expect that Parliament should set up their own Committee on this one, investigate it and make recommendations that will stick and work and allow the Executive to implement those recommendations so that we do not have a similar situation.
Mr Speaker, Kantamanto, as the Hon Member said, it just happened recently where fire at just one place, razed down virtually everything. The way our markets are planned and the way things and our buildings are —this does not happen in the French countries. A person cannot build a house in the French-speaking countries unless certain things are put in place. Utilities, including water, access to roads, the designs of the places are done before a person comes to build. But unfortunately, ours is not like that. Because people sell land illegally, they will sell to one person and say “build” and when someone is coming, the workers will run away then another person will sell the land so, the whole place is not planned. I had the privilege of using a lot of quarters and I know that if a person was to fly over Accra, he would see that a lot of the roads have dead ends.
The road goes and there is a dead end because somebody has built across it and has blocked it because the person has power. So, when there is a problem, it is difficult for the Ghana Fire Service to access the place. They are building in waterways, Mr Speaker, and very soon, during the rainy season, we will face it. People have gone to build in waterways and have built block roads and one would know that this has been demarcated for road but a powerful person or whatever will go and build —
I use the words “powerful person” because Mr Speaker, unfortunately, they are not able to break down these houses. If one was to go to Weija area, they have virtually taken over and built on all the waterways. So, one would see thousands of houses sitting in water if they fly a helicopter over Accra, whenever it rains; houses upon houses — Who are the owners? Did they get permission to build? How did they build? What sort of society are we building?
So, this Statement is loaded with a lot of things that we should do, Mr Speaker, and these are the things that should concern us as Members of Parliament. I want to sympathise with Mr Anyimadu-Antwi, my Hon Friend, his constituents, all those who lost their lives and we will see how we can support them to be able to survive. At least in the meantime, to get food to eat, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) should be able to go there and find something. That is why I would say, as part of it, the committee should look at how they can support NADMO because unfortunately, they are not resourced enough to be able to rush in and help the people and do what they need to do.
Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, we are getting into the rainy season, worse of this will happen. I am not praying for it, but it is true that we are going to have worse situations than this. Tidal waves were somewhere in the Volta region. It was across the whole coast. Because of environmental changes, the nature of our society is changing. Things we used not to see before are happening. We have virtually cut down all the trees, so we are having difficulties all over as a country.
So, Mr Speaker, I want to call and support the fact that we support the people; they are our own people. Today, they are helpless, we should find a way of getting Government to at least support them. Government has been supporting other countries who fall in disaster. So, the Member is bringing this to the attention of Government to at least find a way of supporting the people, so that they can get something to live on.
I thank you, Mr Speaker, and may the souls of the innocent who have departed this earth rest in perfect peace. Till we meet again, but not when I am 90 years.
Hon Richard Acheampong
Bia East
Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity.
Let me also join Colleagues to extend my condolences to our friends who lost their lives through this tragic accident, and those who sustained various injuries. It is my prayer that God will grant them a speedy recovery, so that they will come back and do whatever they are supposed to do for their communities.
Mr Speaker, Members have raised a lot of issues, referring to what happened in Appiatse. The point is, are we learning lessons from all these things? So, the issue will happen, we will comment on it then we will go to sleep. This Statement will be referred to a Committee, they will generate a report, they will task Government, NADMO and Ghana National Fire Service to intervene. What about we the citizens? What lessons are we drawing from all these things?
Mr Speaker, one would see a truck carrying highly inflammable products involved in an accident. People would rush to the scene to syphon fuel from this vehicle and by the end of the day, some will get burnt. We have seen it several times. So, what is happening to us? When driving through Konongo, because it is a mining community, one would see all these things over there; people are selling them. We have the security agencies, regulatory authorities, what are they doing to save this situation, Mr Speaker?
We live in a country where somebody can just walk to a shop and buy an acid and explosives, without any check. We expose ourselves into all these things, we come back and it is like a talk show, we lament our needs and that ends it. The very people that we are trying to support are not ready to change their lifestyle. So, we have a very big challenge on our hands, Mr Speaker. Ghana Fire Service is not well tooled up. Let us give them the needed resources so that they can also work according to time. According to the Statements, they were there on time but the question is, the gentleman who was trying to aid them and who was trying to direct the vehicle, was he a trained firefighter? He is not.
That is not his field. Trained officers have arrived, they are going to do their work and he was there to direct where they should park their vehicles. At the end of the day, he has lost his life. There is no insurance cover for him. But for the officers, at least there is an insurance cover for them. The former Minister for Defence said the communal spirit is almost gone. He was trying to also rejuvenate that, to let people see that he was also supporting to fight the fire.
But at the end of the day, he is gone. I am not saying we should mind our business, but sometimes we should allow the experts to do their work. So, Hon Member— he was trying to save the situation but at the end of the day, what happened? Because he was not an expert; he was not trained to do that job. But the one who called the Fire Service did what was expected of him. Because he placed the call, the Fire Service officers also came on time but the gentleman who was at the scene trying to direct the truck or supporting them has also lost his life.
My condolences to the bereaved family and I do not know Mr Speaker’s final ruling on this matter—Even if the Statement is referred to the Committee, a Report will be generated, resources will be made available to the affected families or the victims, but we should do proper education. But if we are educating somebody and the person is not ready to take the education, it is like we are wasting our resources. Because we are not ready to be educated and we do not value our lives, people see danger coming but will say, I will either die or survive. We cannot gamble with our life. They know they sell explosives, they know there is no mechanisms in case of any fire outbreak to deal with the matter but because they are making good money out of it, nobody cares about the consequences. Here we are talking about the same issues.
Mr Speaker, our state institutions should also help us, give us the needed education. The state must also invest more into this, especially the security agencies, Fire Service, so that whenever there are issues like this, they can also at least attend to those issues and deal with it, so that at least when we are going to sleep, we know that in case of any issue, there is somebody there to rescue us.
Mr Speaker, I thank you very much for the opportunity.
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