Following the fire outbreak that ravaged the Kantamanto Market in Accra on January 2, 2025, President John Dramani Mahama has commiserated with the traders, assuring them of government’s support to recover from their losses.
Interacting with the affected traders at the Accra International Conference Centre on Monday, the President expressed concern over their plight and directed his Chief of Staff to meet with them to find out the immediate assistance possible. The Kantamanto Market is an important trading hub in Ghana, supplying goods and services to the greater parts of the country. “And so when we heard the news, it came as quite a shock because the country was in the mood for the inauguration and everything was going well,” the President said.
“For something like this to happen, it really saddened all of us. The loss of capital, the loss of goods have been very heavy.” President Mahama said due to the gravity of the fire, he asked Vice President Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang to pay a visit to the site to sympathize with the traders, listen to their concerns, and chart the way forward. “One of the first things we need to do is to prevent these fire outbreaks from happening. In some cases it might be due to wrong wiring or use of inferior materials,” he said.
“But in some cases, we can’t rule out what we call arson; that is people deliberately setting fire in order to cause distraction.” “I remember it happened in 2013 when I was newly sworn in as President. There were market fires in almost every market, which was quite unusual.” The President said in many cases the investigation showed that people deliberately set fire just to cause chaos and confusion.
He noted that he had also learnt of the Techiman Market fire and had directed the security heads to tighten security around the markets to curb the menace. He tasked the Fire Service to station their tenders near big markets in the nights, so that in case of a fire outbreak they would be right there on the scene to douse it before it caused any damage.
“We’re also asking them to explore installing CCTV cameras at all vantage points of every market so that if anybody is involved in setting the fires, we’ll be able to see on the CCTV camera.” The traders informed the President that the damage caused by the fire had brought untold hardships to them and appealed to the Government for support to enable them to get back on their feet.
Mr. Jerry John Kwesi Motey, Chairman of Kantamanto 2 Market, told the President that certain people had threatened them with eviction; saying the land in question belonged to the Ghana Railway Authority. He appealed to the President to intervene to ensure their livelihood and safety were secured.
Source: GNA
