Government to offer financial support to victims of new Kejetia fire disaster

The government will provide financial assistance to all the victims of the new Kejetia fire disaster in Kumasi for them to restart their businesses.

The market would also be reopened from Tuesday, March 21 to enable the traders who were not affected to continue to do their business, while investigations into the cause of the fire outbreak continue.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President, announced this during a visit to the market on Monday morning.

The Vice President was at the market together with other high-ranking government officials to inspect the extent of damage caused by the fire, which ravaged parts of the market on Friday, March 17.

A total of 33 shops were affected during the outbreak and merchandise worth millions of cedis was destroyed.

Dr Bawumia said preliminary investigations by the Ghana National Fire Service indicated that the fire was not caused by an electrical fault, but rather, a gas explosion which emanated from the shop of one of the traders, who was cooking food at the time.

He praised the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) for the swift response, which helped to control the spread of the fire.

The Vice President said the government was concerned about the plight of the affected traders and would do everything to support them to restart their businesses for them to contribute to the growth and development of the country.