It is now all over the place that an explosion occurred at the STA Addsam quarry mine, formerly Omini Quarry, in the Shama District in the Western Region, at midnight on Saturday, which killed four persons and left a number injured, with others declared missing.
Currently, the police, the Ghana National Fire Service, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Minerals Commission, as well as other stakeholders like the Western Regional Coordinating Council are doing their bits to help the situation.
It was public expectation that at least a member of the management team at the quarry would have personally reported to the relevant agencies or organisations to help with their efforts to salvage the situation.
However, this appears not to be the case and so the Executive Director of the EPA, Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, has ordered the arrest of the owner of Sta Addsams Enterprise, Mr Samuel Twumasi Addo, for not showing up since an explosion at the quarry site on Saturday night.
What is said to be infuriating about Addo’s behaviour is that he initially refused to respond to calls and at the time of going to press, his phone was off.
We wish Mr Addo’s behaviour was not intentional but if it was, then Dr Kokofo has been magnanimous by describing it as inhumane and not its harsher sister “inhuman”, which means cruel, monstrous, and barbaric.
We know Addo would be fished out wherever he is and dealt with according to law.
But while we say this, we also want to question the strength of the monitoring system of the EPA.
How often does officials of the EPA visit the companies that are supposed to be monitored by them?
It has been reported that certain explosives being illegally stored at the quarry site exploded, hence the current disaster of deaths, injuries, missing persons and destruction to property.
Was the EPA aware of the storage of the explosives, or it is not part of its functions to know this?
We are sad to hear that the EPA has observed that people continue to work illegally on its blind side and so is now restrategising its monitoring systems and deploying technology to improve our monitoring.
We expected the EPA to have acknowledged the crooked ways of some individuals and companies in the country and planned ahead of them.
Regarding the storage of the explosives, we have learnt that officials of the Minerals Commission make sure that quarries use what they can at a time and take the remaining away.
How often do the Commission officials do that – daily, weekly or monthly?
The public must know this so that both workers at quarries and mines where explosives are used and the general public can “say something when they see something” as demanded by Dr Kokofu.
We need sound knowledge upon which to act.
It seems the regulatory bodies have too many excuses to cover their negligence and ineptitude.
Why should anyone give the excuse that Omini Quarry might have procured the explosives from the open market on the blind side of the regulator?
Is it not only negligence that can enable a quarry that does not have the permit to store such explosives to defy the law and do so?
It is about the time state regulators thought outside the box to be proactive instead of being reactive when possible preventable disasters occur.
