Esther Anku addressing participants at the workshop
Petroleum Service Providers (PSP) in Ghana are expected to sign “safety declaration pact” with the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and also to hoist banners on safety issues at their facilities. This was made known by the Chief Inspector of NPA, Mrs. Esther Anku, at a media sensitization workshop on safety campaign organized by the NPA for media practitioners at the Sky Plus Hotel, Ho in the Volta region.
In her address to the practitioners, Mrs. Anku said the safety campaign was necessitated by the increase in petroleum related fire outbreaks in the country in recent times which have claimed many lives and left several others permanently maimed. Relying on statistics of the Ghana National Fire Service, she said 15 cases of petroleum fires were recorded in the country in the first quarter of 2017, a phenomenon which she says calls for concern from well-meaning Ghanaians.
According to her, the safety campaign is therefore a needful response to the lapses in the petroleum industry in the country. She indicated that the main goal of the campaign which is themed: ‘People Safety First’ is to stop these accidents in the petroleum industry.
She also announced that as part of their campaign to improve on safety in the operations of petroleum dealers, the NPA was instituting a Safety Day which would be observed once annually.
The Coordinator of Unified Petroleum Price Fund of NPA, Mr. Samuel Asare Bediako called on the media to join the NPA as they embark on series of educational campaigns across the country to draw the attention of Ghanaians to safety measures they need to apply when dealing with petroleum products. He urged the media practitioners to give feed back to NPA to enable them to improve on their safety procedures and that the media practitioners should also develop better understanding of safety issues.
He also reiterated the need for caution in setting up auto mechanic shops close to filling stations, warning that some of their activities were most likely to spark fire. He, therefore, pleaded with the citizens to draw the attention of the Authority should any such occurrence be seen around their vicinity.
The launch of the National Petroleum Safety Campaign 2017 comes off in August. In connection with this, the officials of the NPA have been travelling across the country engaging major stakeholders about the causes, effects and prevention of petroleum related fire outbreaks.
