Traders at the Nyankumasi Ahenkro Market in the Assin South District of the Central Region have lost their goods in a fire.

Goods worth thousands of Ghana Cedis were destroyed when fire gutted the market.

An eyewitness, the driver of a commercial vehicle, Patrick, narrating the incident to Class 91.3FM’s Central Regional Correspondent Nana Tawiah said: “I’m a driver at this station, I was standing beside my car when I perceived the smoke. I actually thought it was one of our vehicles that had been gutted by fire. So I was looking around. Later when I looked around the market, I noticed smoke coming out from some three containers. I went behind and saw some boys who were lighting fire to the containers. So I screamed asking why they would try to set fire to someone’s container.

“When they attempted to leave the scene, I took pictures of them, in case they decide to run away, I’ll still have their pictures to show. We called the Fire Service, who claimed their vehicle had broken down. So they didn’t show up.”

According to the driver, though, efforts were made to douse the fire to salvage the wares of the traders, the fire spread to other shops.

“We attempted to douse the fire ourselves, by pouring sand, we tried our best to douse it but all the things in the containers were ruined in the fire.”

A driver at the station, Master Baah, appealed to government to provide the area with a fire station to respond to such situations.

“We’re appealing to the Assin South authorities to provide us with a fire station. If we had a fire station they would have showed up to douse the fire. 

“If we’re independent then Assin South should also have a fire station. Just look at how we called Abura-Dunkwa but they couldn’t send firefighters, if we had ours, they would have responded and come to douse the fire to avoid further damage,” Master Baah said.

A female trader at the market, Akua Ewusi, however, blamed the problem on leadership. She bemoaned the inability of leaders in the Assin community for not working towards the development of the area.

“The leaders, are not helping the Assin community. If we had fire service in this area, this could have been stopped. The economy is hard, mothers are suffering to survive and take care of their children, now look at what has happened, people have lost their wares. The leaders are not helping us at all," Akua Ewusi said.