Malicious persons behind market fires – former chief fire officer suspects

Former Chief Fire Officer, Samuel Akyianu, is suspecting that some malicious persons are behind the recent market fire outbreaks in the country.

Mr Samuel Akyianu recalled that he had to sleep in markets during his tenure in office when he sensed that people were intentionally setting markets ablaze.

This, according to him, paid off as the alarming fire outbreaks ceased.

Mr Akyianu told Joy News, he is, therefore, not ruling out arson in the frequent market fires bedeviling the country.

President John Mahama like many of his officials, is not also excluding the handiwork of arsonists.

“When I was chief fire officer, I was sleeping in the markets when they started doing that, and from then the thing went off. I was sleeping in the markets with the team,” Mr. Akyianu recollected.

He added that while sleeping at markets, he also considered everybody as a suspect and did not allow anything to chance.

He noted that every fire outbreak has its cause- either the substance will burn by itself or set ablaze.

The former chief fire officer said without knowing the cause of the fire, it would be dangerous to allow a reconstruction. He has, therefore, charged authorities to “tackle the matter vigorously” to ascertain their causes.

“The fires that are being caused now are so rampant that you cannot say that it was technical. It might be done by malicious intent of people.”

Charging insurance companies to know what exactly people come to them to insure, he also called on the police to arrest fire victims for questioning because “may be they did it intentionally”.

Meanwhile, government has given a directive to the Electricity Company of Ghana to conduct a nationwide inspection on electrical wiring in markets. A technical audit has revealed that two hundred and eighty five markets (285) had illegal and sub standard wiring.

William Boateng who is leading the ECG team to carry out the directive told Joy News, works in major markets like Okaishie, Nima, Malam Atta, Kaneshie and Asafo would be completed in three months.