The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, has inaugurated a nine-member committee to investigate and establish the factors leading to the Anto-Aboso quarry explosion.
It will produce a comprehensive report to guide future activities in the quarry sector.
The Minister gave the charge at the Regional Coordinating Council office and mentioned the Security services, Minerals Commission, Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA), Works engineer, assembly member of the area and the National Disaster Management Organisation ( NADMO), all from the Shama District Assembly, as the members of the committee.
Mr. Frederick Agyemang, the Chief Director of the WRCC, is the chairman of the Committee and has three weeks to furnish the minister with the report.
The committee has the responsibility to establish the cause of the explosion, safety issues and authorization of their operations, among other things.
In a related development, the Executive Director, Environmental Protection Agency , Henry Kwabena Kokofu and Chief Executive Officer, Minerals Commission, Mr. Martin Ayisi, have visited the site of incident grounds to asses the situation after Saturday accident.
Dr. Kokofu said, “this is not a pleasant situation at all,” adding explosives were not supposed to be carried by anybody and wondered why workers in the company did not hint the EPA on the storage of the Ammonium nitrate at the site.
Dr. Kokofu added, “ This is why we continue to say when you see something , say something…if workers had been proactive this unnecessary accident could have been prevented.”
He called for attitudinal change among Ghanaian workers…we have observed that people continue to work illegally at our blind site , we are restrategizing our monitoring systems and deploying technology that would improve our monitoring.
Mr. Martin Ayisi, for his part, stressed the need for Ghanaian companies to work in line with stipulated requirements.
He said, “This is what happens when you do things without recourse to due processes”.
Mr. Ayisi stressed that the company had no legal backing to operate though their documents were in the books of Minerals Commission.
He said whereas blast men should be certified by the Chief Inspector of Mines, storage, transportation and usage of substance must also be approved by the inspectorate division of the Commission.
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