Daily Heritage December 5

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DAILY HERITAGE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2017
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• READ FROM PAGE 2 • University Chancellor urges students “During those days,
there were a lot of
job opportunities
without the requisite
manpower ...”
are not encouraging and empowering you
or giving you hope, then it will take a few
or bold students to go out of the shell to
do something on their own,” he told the
paper.
Dr Danquah further called for a paradigm
shift in the education and training
in our tertiary institutions, saying, “Looking
at the challenges of the country today
as against the days of Kwame Nkrumah,
then there must be a change in the system.”
“During those days, there were a lot of
job opportunities without the requisite
manpower and so during those days our
universities were training to fill up those
vacancies; now that is not the situation.
“That paradigm must now change to a
case where universities will be in the
frontline of directing, encouraging, mentoring,
and empowering their students to
look at opportunities in the society,” he
stated.
More fire disaster looms
BY PHILIP ANTOH
philip.antoh@dailyheritage.com.gh
• Filling station owners, workers and
customers ignorant of safety measures
• Govt urged to sit up
• Mr Philip Nana Asante, Director of PB Protection Centre, addressing the media while Apostle
Peter Agyemang-Kuragu (R) and another pastor at the press conference
According to him,
government institutions
mandated to
enforce safety measures
in various petrol
and gas filling stations
have failed the
country, hence rampant
fire disasters.
THE DIRECTOR of
Public Protection Centre,
also known as PB
Protection Centre, Mr
Philip Nana Asante, is
predicting more fire disasters in the
country, if institutions do not include
safety measures in their day-to- day
administration.
According to him, government
institutions mandated to enforce
safety measures in various petrol and
gas filling stations have failed the
country, hence rampant fire disasters.
Mr Asante said the failure had resulted
in some manufacturing and
processing companies not having any
direct policy to “guard them to adopt
safety, health and environmental issues
seriously to help protect employers,
employees, and road users
among others.”
He said regulatory bodies, owners
and workers of filling station, as well
as customers, are ignorant about
some safety measures that have to be
present before granting permit to
operate or being allowed to operate
in an environment.
The director of the PB Protection
Centre said most workers at both gas
and petrol filling stations have no
idea what the caution stickers mean
or what is called assembling point
where workers converge in an emergency
situation, which makes them
powerless against individuals who
perpetrate any wrongdoing at workplaces.
“The government should put systems
in place in most risk-prone
areas to monitor the level of precautionary
measures and law enforcement
agencies should punish anybody
who flouts the rules put in
place to reduce risks,” he stated.
Sharing a personal experience, Mr
Asante said on his way to Newtown
a few weeks ago, he encountered a
man who was making a phone call at
a filling station, so “I decided to confront
one worker if he won’t approach
the man to stop him. The
worker said to me the man would ignore
him and I was so amazed by the
worker’s answer because I knew he
does not cherish his life.”
He continued to advise that the
owners of filling stations should take
it upon themselves to educate their
workers because some body’s mistake
could cost them their lives.
“How many individuals have even
been cleared to operate filling stations
in the city?” he asked rhetorically.
Speaking to the DAILY HER-
ITAGE yesterday after a press conference
to introduce the organisation
to the media, Mr Asante said elimination
of every risk from any activity
may be impossible but can be reduced.
Negative concern
Asked whether the issue of filling
stations being put up in residential
areas or close to houses and market
places was due to ignorance of the
system, he said sometimes the filling
stations are put up before the area
develops and what needs to be done
is sensitisation.
He said a certain percentage of
the Ghanaian population are working
at places where they are exposed to
harmful chemicals in uncontrolled
limits daily as most of these companies
do not have risk reduction control
measures, including control
officers, to forecast the dangers.
Mr Asante advised Ghanaian road
users to be aware that leaves are not
caution triangles if they encounter
any problems on the roads and even
for the sake of risk reduction, if it is
used as such they must be collected
and discarded after the problem has
been fixed.
He also encouraged journalists to
take safety measures wherever they
find themselves.
He emphasised the issue of journalists
going to different places and
said their shoes and dresses should
fit the kind of terrain and environment
they would encounter.
Mr Asante stated that the PB Protection
Centre is a newly-formed and
registered safety, health and environment
consultancy firm aimed at sensitising
the public to regular public
education.
He added that the organisation is
to see greater number of Ghanaians
population enlightened on issues of
safety, preventive health, environment
and human rights, in that incidents
of accidents and fire outbreaks
on the road and at home and workplaces
and injuries are reduced.
Mr Asante called on journalists to
psych themselves up at any point in
time and have the ability to take the
necessary measures to keep themselves
safe even in an uncondusive
environment.