Disaster committee stops construction of fuel station

The Eastern Regional Disaster Management Committee has ordered that construction works on a filling station at Anglo Town, a suburb of Koforidua, be halted.

This comes amid growing concerns over the safety of residents in the area. The filling station is being built close to a cluster of houses, and this the Regional Minister, Mrs. Mavis Ama Frimpong Gati, said posed serious threat to lives and property.

In the event of an accident, innocent lives, she indicated, would be lost.

Mrs. Gati, who chairs the committee, warned that anybody, who flouted the order would be arrested by the police and prosecuted.

Some residents in the area had earlier demonstrated to express their anger over the siting of the project.

They said they felt “very unsafe” living close to a filling station. It may be recalled that the committee had requested the New Juaben Municipal Assembly to withdraw the building permit given to the owners of the station but this was largely ignored.

Mr. Kwabena Okyere-Kusi, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said the assembly was rendered impotent, as all the public institutions, required by law to sanction such projects, had “okayed it”.

That, he said, made it extremely difficult for them to have acted any differently.