GH¢67,000 burns in church fire disaster …Members want probe

Some church members of the Power Prayer Ministry, a Madina-based popular church have called for a probe into the circumstances that led to a fire disaster that ravaged their church leading to the alleged burning of cash of GH¢67,000.00 kept in a safe in the church house.

The fire which burnt the church barely a month ago was said to have also destroyed five desktop computers, three LG LCD flat screen television sets, one DVD deck, one Toshiba tape recorder, three standing fans, seven indoor air conditioners, two table top refrigerators and a set of stuffed chairs.

The rest were one sofa chair, a keyboard, three trumpets, three Apple iPads, three Samsung iphones, three decoders, two power stabilizers and a set of drums among others, worth four hundred and fifty Ghana Cedis.

Recounting the disaster in an interview with the DAILY HERITAGE, Kwadwo Peprah, a junior pastor of the church said at around 8pm on that day, the head pastor, Daniel Agbeko, popularly known as Agbee and some junior pastors returned from the Ashaiman branch of the church asked them to put on the air conditioner.

He said the air conditioner was not working and so they decided to check the next room to find out whether the sockets were working.

Pastor Preprah said when the door to the studio room was opened, they found a thick smoke and fire coming out and he quickly ran to the Fire Service Post which was nearby to seek for help.

Mr. Peprah said it took the fire service about fifteen minutes to arrive at the scene, by which time the fire had spread to the main auditorium and was beyond control.

He said the fire team told them that they did not have enough water in the fire tender and needed reinforcement from Dodowa. According to him, it took the Fire Service team from Dodowa another thirty minutes to get to the scene, “by then everything had been razed down by the fire.”

On his part, Pastor Ben, the assistant pastor at the church said he suspected arson because they found a five-liter gallon at the back of the studio window with petrol in it. He said the petrol might have been used to start the fire and called for a probe into the incident.

Weeks after the disaster, some church members who stormed the offices of the paper over the weekend said they suspect foul play and wondered why an amount of GH¢67,000.00 would be kept at the premises of the church and not at the bank.

“We don't understand this, something is not right; there should be an investigation into the matter.