Mr Speaker, I believe that 3rd June, 2015,is a day that many of us were in sorrow. Itwas a day that many of us weredisheartened. It was a day many of uswould never forget in our lives and on aday like this, as we remember whathappened, we should remember the goodand the bad, and the way forward, when itcomes to disaster management. Mr Speaker, many Hon Members havespoken about how to manage. What arewe doing as a country in the managementof risk and disaster? I would want to shiftthe goalpost a bit. I would want to focuson the authorities in charge of givinglicences for the establishment of fillingstations. Go round the country and you wouldrealise that many filling stations arespringing up in residential areas, and thequestion you ask yourself is: what are theauthorities doing? You see a filling stationsandwiched between two residentialhomes. In the event of a spill, Mr Speaker,only God knows what would happen. Mr Speaker, the rules and regulationsand the laws are so clear on themeasurement of the metres that a fillingstation should be away from a residentialpost. But today, we do not seem to beseeing it. And the question I am askingtoday is, is the National PetroleumAuthority (NPA) and the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) workingadequately to ensure that we do not getourselves into the situation we got in onJune 3? Mr Speaker, the EPA is supposed toinspect and know all the environmentalissues that need to be established, andtake a decision whether to give licencesto people to establish filling stations. Mr Speaker, we cannot let money beahead of us without thinking about the
lives of our people. It looks like peopleare thinking more of their money than thesafety and the lives of people. So, for them, once they establish thefilling stations and they are makingmoney, they do not care whether it is in aresidential area. Some are even close tohospitals. I speak on authority from myown constituency. And I have raised thisissue several times. They are close to ahospital, close to a lorry station and ifanything should happen, these are placesthat we could bet our last pennies on, thatthere would be a crowd there in the eventthat something happens. Yet, nobody istalking about it. Mr Speaker, I believe that the EPAshould sit up, the NPA should sit up, andwe should not look at giving licences topeople just because we know them, or justbecause we favour them in one way orthe other. But the safety and well-beingof our people should be prime. Mr Speaker, we were here in thiscountry, and we commend the Presidentfor initiating such an initiative, when wehad a lot of our markets burning up. Wehad some American experts in disastermanagement or risk management comeinto this country to do a properinvestigation on the causes. I believe that, this should be publicinformation so that everybody would beaware and educated on, when it comes tofires. But we do not know where thisreport is; whether it is with the Ministryof the Interior or whether it is publicinformation where we can all access andeducate our constituents on, is onequestion that baffles all of us. Mr Speaker, if a country cannot bluffitself in saying that we can live withoutfire, we can live without floods, we canlive without natural disaster, then some
of these relevant information can be keptin our archives. But this is something thatis periodical, this is something which isseasonal. In every rainy season, we havea disaster, so, it should be somethingthat all the relevant authorities shouldknow about and be properly educatedon as well as the citizenry, so that we canall move forward and know the directionthat we are taking as a country when itcomes to risk or disaster management. Mr Speaker, in winding up, I have hearda lot of media reportage and complaintsby victims of this incident. We arewitnesses to the fact that if theseindividuals should even come togetherand institute a class action against theState, the damages we are supposed topay to these people would beoverwhelming. But nothing like that had happenedand they are still waiting on the ‘Lord',which the Government of Ghana said thatsomething would be given to them ascompensation. Mr Speaker, the GOIL filling stationthat got exploded and all that, they caninstitute an action against GOIL. And MrSpeaker, being a learned senior and a veryrespected legal luminary --
