Ghana's president calls for protecting state property after fire destroys medical facility

Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama Friday urged states institutions to liaise with the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to ensure state properties were protected.

Mahama said here at the industrial hub of the country, 38 km east of Accra, the national capital during his visit to the Central Medical Stores (CMS) to find out the level of destruction Tuesday's fire has caused to the facility.

He said, "If it was fire that occurred by accident, then we also have to assess the state of fire preparedness for sensitive installations like this and someone has to take some sort of responsibility.

We can't continue to have this kind of situation happen where the nation loses so much money. And in these times where we have economic challenges and you lose medical supplies and equipment worth more than 300 million cedis is totally unacceptable."

The president, who could not believe what he saw after being taken round the facility that supplied medication to the country's health installations, described the situation as a "national tragedy."

Fire consumed the CMS here belonging to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on Tuesday bringing virtually the entire edifice and its content down to its knees.

It took fire personnel over 48 hours to extinguish the inferno completely from the ruined edifice that served as center for distribution of medical supplies to other parts of the country.

Fire personnel were still at the site of the incident clearing the debris four days into the fire disaster.

It is not yet clear the cause of the fire but the cost of the destruction according to Health Minister, Dr. Agyemang-Manu runs over 237, 798,077 cedis.

Commodities lost in Tuesday's fire disaster included essential medicines, medical consumables, medical equipment, Anti-Retroviral medicines and test kits, anti-malarial medicines and test kits.

Others are TB medicines, Immunization consumables, insecticide bed nets, Ebola Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), condoms and relief food items for the World Food Program.

Investigations have begun to unravel the cause of the fire and consequently, the president directed the country's national security to liaise with the GNFS to speed up the investigations to establish the cause.

The CMS, which render a number of services, forecasts accurately both medicine and non-medicine commodity needs of the country.

It also procures supplies in a timely and efficient manner and monitors their utilization to minimize wastage. Endi