The building near the Makola Shopping Mall which housed many shops was razed by a fire that lasted for not less than five hours after it broke out some minutes after 8 am, destroying the wares of traders who claimed to have lost huge sums of money.
The Fire Service has since been criticized for not being proactive, leading to the entire building burning beyond redemption.
A witness who claimed to have been present right from the start of the inferno through to the time it was eventually brought under control, said the officials exhibited a high level of unprofessionalism.
According to him, when the fire initially started, they rushed to the Fire Service Station situated just about 300m away, but the officials walked by foot to the scene to ascertain the incident before they finally brought a tender with no water inside.
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Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, Ellis Robinson Oko has said that the service cannot be blamed for its inability to douse the fire proactively.
He accused the Ghana Water Company of not helping the fire service to deliver its mandate to expectation.
He told Accra-based Starr FM: “We didn't run out of water. The problem is all the fire hydrants didn't have water in them so we had to rely on water from circle and Alajo. It's the responsibility of the water company to manage the fire hydrants. We don’t manage fire hydrants.
“As at the time the fire happened, all the hydrants were not flowing. The water company didn't tell us why they shut it yesterday. We couldn't leave our duty to go ask Ghana Water Company why there was no water in our hydrants so we did what was required at the time and that's what we did. t’s rather unfortunate that everyone is blaming us but let’s look at the situation on the ground before blaming the fire service.”