We don’t need cabinet meeting to solve gas explosions – Namoale

Former Member of Parliament for Dade Kotopon, Nii Amasah Namoale said the President does not need cabinet to implement “simple” regulation in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) books.

His comments follows decision by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to meet his cabinet on Thursday over the deadly gas explosion last week Saturday but before the President will meet his cabinet.

“We don’t need more policies or programmes to deal with these issues, what we need is the President directing his appointees at the supervising agencies and ministries to act, and not to be holding cabinet meetings, for what?” Namoale asked in bewilderment on Onua Fm morning show on Wednesday.

Seven persons lost their lives, with 132 others sustaining varied degrees of injury in Saturday’s explosion which is the 8th within three years in the country.

Nii Amasah Namoale insisted that the explosions are becoming one too many, and the President should be seen being proactive rather than “talking because the talk is becoming too much; he is the executive President and have the power to hire and fire, so Nana Addo please get down and do the work”. He posited that if people appointed by the President fail, he has no other options than to accept the blame since the buck stops with him, adding that if the problem is lack of human resources at the agencies responsible for ensuring safety in the environment, government should recruit more people.

“This is a matter of life and death and we should not wait for another explosion or disaster of a sort, if there are no men at EPA, GSA (Ghana Standards Authority) and all other agencies responsible for ensuring safety, then they must recruit more people.

The President must act now, he should fire those ineffective CEOs” Meanwhile, former MP for Ablekuma North Justice Joe Appiah has condemned attempt by some people to politicize the Saturday’s explosion, saying “if the heads of supervising agencies cannot enforce their own regulations for our safety, then they should get out of office. It is time we stop this nonsense, people are dying” .