A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) communications team and a lawyer, Mike Oquaye Jnr., has expressed disgust over what he describes as “irresponsible statements” being made by top government officials with regards to the market place infernos.
He could not understand why leaders of the nation keep claiming the fire out breaks in the various market places across the country are acts of arson, without providing any prove.
“I am going to take a strong stand on the issue because the irresponsible talk is too much and I think you cannot make a statement that has been repeated by my honourable brother here that, you cannot rule out arson,” he said on Metro TV’s “Good Morning Ghana” programme.
The trained Lawyer further questioned the ease with which these fires are quickly attributed to a deliberate act of setting fire to property.
Mike Oquaye Jnr’s., condemnation of the claim of arson whiles investigations are inconclusive comes on the heels of a number of reported fire out breaks with the latest on Sunday, leading to the death of three, including a three month old baby boy.
He burnt to death when was said to have been left to sleep in the candle lit wooden structure, at the Odawna Market near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra on Sunday evening, while his mother went out to buy diapers
The second incident of inferno recorded at Nungua claimed the life of a two-year-old boy and his mother, when the wooden structure in which they were sleeping caught fire.
In Kumasi, scores of shops were razed to the ground at the central market when fire swept through it at dawn.
A five-bedroom house situated at the plush Trassaco Valley residential community- estimated to cost a million dollars and with no fire extinguisher – was gutted by fire, also on Sunday.
In the light of loss of life and property by fire, Mike Oquaye Jnr., is of the view that it is not right to jump to conclusion by claiming arson without providing any prove.