Demolition exercise on the three-storey building gutted by fire at Makola in Accra a month ago commenced yesterday.
This follows a recommendation by a committee tasked to investigate the July 5, 2021 fire outbreak that the integrity of the building is “weak and compromised”.
When this reporter got to the scene at about 7:30 a.m. the area had been condoned off, with excavators on the ground ready to pull down the building.
Personnel from the 48 Engineers of the Ghana Armed Forces in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, officials of the National Disaster Management Organisation, Accra Metropolitan Assembly and Ghana Ambulance Service, were at hand to carry out the exercise.
At exactly 12:00p.m, excavators started pulling down the private property containing 122 shops and warehouse used for selling for cosmetics, clothes, aerosols, hand sanitisers, beads and jewelries.
Briefing journalists on the exercise, the Head of Public Affairs of the AMA, Mr Gilbert Ankrah, said the AMA instituted a committee to establish the cause of the fire .
He said the committee presented its report to the Assembly and recommended the building to be pulled down, due to its weakness, to ensure safety of people.
“The Accra Central Business District is a busy area and this building according to the recommendation from the committee must be pulled down to ensure lives were protected, ‘’he added
Mr Ankrah stated that after the building had been pulled down, “we will know the next line of action.”
He said all stakeholder and parties involved had agreed for the building to be demolished.
Touching on compensation, the head of PRO said packages had been arranged, through the Ministry of Trade and Industries, for the victims.
Mr Ankrah urged the traders to corporate with the engineers on the ground to ensure the success of the demolition for trading to bounce back in the areas.
The Ghanaian Times in its Tuesday, July 6, 2021 issue reported that fire burnt a three-storey building at Makola Market, in the Central Business District of Accra, destroying goods running into millions of Ghana cedis.
Sparks from a generator set was said to have caused the fire outbreak, according to a report by a committee set up by the AMA to investigate the cause.
BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI
