The Benjamin Aryee committee tasked to look into the Appiate explosion has presented its report to the Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor.
Benjamin Aryee said the committee’s work fully covered all issues and interviewed all the relevant stakeholders including the police, eyewitnesses, chiefs, medical officers, and dispatchers at Maxam among others.
He said the committee did thorough and impartial work and is certain that the report fairly captures all the facts of the incident.
“We have dispassionately looked at the facts that were presented to us, which we were able to unearth and objectively capture in this report. We have presented our findings and made some recommendations.”
“We were able to visit the relevant stakeholders, spoke to witnesses to the various incidents and through the interviews and our observations, we have come up with this report which we believe fairly represents the fact of the case,” he said.
The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, who received the report, indicated that his outfit will act swiftly on it.
He said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will ensure that persons found to have done any wrong leading to the devastating incident will be dealt with.
The Minister, while stressing that the committee’s work was to establish the facts of the incident and not to establish criminality, called on Ghanaians to be circumspect in discussions about the explosion.
“We should be able to review this report as soon as possible and be able to come to a firm conclusion as to what are the necessary steps we have to take… When incidents like this occur, it is important that we establish the facts dispassionately. I have no doubt that what the committee has done is exactly in accordance with this attitude and spirit of fairness and objectively anchored in integrity. Let me assure the country that the president is fully committed to ensuring that whoever is found culpable or committed any wrong in this matter will be made to face the full rigours of the laws and whatever lessons we need to learn, we will do so,” he said.
