No lessons learned from June 3 disaster – Kwame Jantuah

The gas explosion that occurred at the Atomic Junction, Madina, on Saturday, October 6 indicates that no lessons have been learnt from the June 3rd twin fire and flood disaster that occurred in 2015, killing over 200 people, Kwame Jantuah, an energy expert, has said.

According to him, the state institutions entrusted to ensure strict compliance of rules and regulations at the various gas and other fuel filling stations have failed to work up to expectation, therefore, the recurrence of the disasters.

Speaking on TV3’s New Day programme on Saturday, October 14 Mr Jantuah said: “We have not learned from the 3rd June disaster. If we had learned from it, we wouldn’t have gas filling stations near homes.”

Following that explosion which killed seven persons and injured over 135 people, the President has ordered the “immediate cessation, until further notice, of all construction of facilities intended for use as gas or petroleum retail stations”.

Additionally, the President has also directed the shutdown of all high-risk Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stations across the country.

But sharing his opinion on this directive, Mr Jantuah said it was not the duty of the President to have instituted these measures.

He said: “Is it government’s responsibility to put in these measures? Is it the President’s responsibility to put these measures in place? It is the responsibility the regulator, it is not the President’s responsibility to do what he has done. Commendable as it is, it is not his responsibility, it is the reasonability of the regulator and it has to be a continuous on-going thing.

“How many times a year does EPA monitor these stations? Twice a year, which is very inadequate. We are dealing with a highly inflammable substance.

“I don’t think it is the duty of the President to do what he has done, it is the regulator.”