<<Print>>

The Head of the Bureau of Public Safety is pointing to a possible case of negligence in the fire that gutted the old Parliament House Thursday, dawn. Nana Yaw Akwada told Joy News Evans Mensah he will be happy if somebody will be held responsible for the fire. An inferno Thursday dawn brought down the edifice of the old Parliament House which served as offices for the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) as well the Judgement Debt Commission. Properties running into thousands of cedis were destroyed in the process. Officials at CHRAJ have been quick to blame the inferno on poor electrical wiring at the offices. It has even emerged that officials of CHRAJ consistently presented a budget to the authorities for the renovation and replacement of the faulty wiring, but their requests were turned down probably due to lack of funds. Nana Yaw Akwada said somebody must be held accountable for the blaze. He warned further that other old buildings including the Supreme Court building could face the same fate if urgent steps are not taken to rectify the wiring system. In a reaction, the Head of Public Affairs at the Ghana National Fire Service, Ellis Oko, conceded old buildings have usually poor electric wiring, but was quick to add that neither his attention nor that of the institution was drawn to the poor state of affairs at the Old Parliament House. He could not also establish whether the Old Parliament House had a fire certificate. He explained many of the old but refurbished institutions were done without due consultations with the Fire Service, and that has been problematic. He said going forward, the institution insists that, at least all recent buildings must have a fire certificate.