The Mayor of Accra, Hon Elizabeth Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey, accompanied by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, and Members of Parliament within the Greater Accra Region have paid a working visit to the Kantamanto fire scene to commiserate with traders.
The delegation used the opportunity to assess the extent of damage and expressed their sympathy over the unfortunate incident and assured the traders of government support.
The fire which started in the early hours of Tuesday morning razed down numerous stores in the Kantamanto Market in the Central Business District of Accra and was doused by the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service(GNFS).
Addressing the traders Mayor of Accra, Hon Elizabeth Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey thanked God no life was lost whilst commiserating with the affected traders.
“This is a very difficult situation, we are approaching the Christmas season and we understand how difficult it is,” she said.
She also pointed out that the population of traders at the Kantamanto market had increased over the years adding that the Assembly would engage stakeholders to consider ways to provide a conducive environment for their trading activities.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Hon. Henry Quartey in an interaction with the traders commiserated with them and called for collaboration to consider ways to improve the working environment and conditions to enhance their trading activities.
“Today is a bad day for us at Kantamanto Market… If my memory serves me right this would be about the 12th fire outbreak here within the last 10 years… If you would notice I am not here as just the Regional Minister but all Members of Parliament in the Greater Accra Region are here with me devoid of party colours, because of the state in which Kantamanto sits we have to be together and make it the vision of Greater Accra and Ghana and consider ways you can conduct your trading activities in a more conducive manner,” he said.
He pointed out that the leaders of the market had been engaged to find suitable ways to deal with the congestion within the market and the proposed relocation of the traders to a bigger space to ease congestion and ensure a more convenient and safer environment for trading.
He urged the traders not to apportion blame but wait for the investigation report from the fire service to ascertain the real cause of the fire.
Mr Oscar Paul Ankomah, Chief Executive Officer of Oscarpak Enterprise and National Chief Patron of the National Used Clothing Association of Ghana on his part was grateful for the visit admitting that the population of the market had increased to over 1 million over the years.
He seconded the proposal to relocate the traders from their current location in the near future due to the congestion in the market.
He noted that the cause of the fire was not known and was hopeful the report from the fire service would help identify the cause to prevent future occurrences.
“Our population in Kantamanto is over 1 million which is a very large population for this place. The population includes foreign traders from other countries but the females are more in comparison to the males. In everything, If I should be asked about the cause of the fire, I would not be able to provide an answer so I hope a committee will be set up to investigate and provide a report…Through this report, we will be able to identify the faults and work on them to prevent this from happening again” he said.
