Fire Consumes Foodstuffs, Items At Tamale Ababoa Market

Foodstuffs and other items belonging to traders running into thousands of Ghana Cedis have been burnt at the Tamale  Ababoa Market in the early hours of today Saturday, 29th January 2020.

At the very hours of the fire outbreak, none of the affected traders and their associates were at the market.

Bag of foodstuffs such as maize, soybeans, pepper, yam,   millet and groundnut, Shea nut, including spraying containers, insecticide for crops, and clothes were burnt.

In an interview with Soireenews, Chief Zakaria Alhassan who happens to be the Chairman of Cereals in the market blamed the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly for contributing largely to the fire outbreak.

According to him, the Assembly refused to control the wiring system of the story building of the market.

Chief Alhassan said, the Assembly made them wire the stores by themselves, which he believed might be the cause of the fire outbreak.

A trader who loosed about a hundred bags of foodstuffs, Mma Afishetu Adam bemoaned that most of the goods that got burnt were bought on credit a few days ago.

"They offloaded the goods that got burnt just a few days ago, some were even brought here yesterday, we never knew this could have happened to us this morning, the goods don't belong to us, we bought them on credit to also sell for profit".

She, therefore, appealed to the general public and government to come to their aid.

The Northern Regional Public Relations Officer for the Ghana Fire Service, Mr. Baba Hudu said they used four of the firefighter ambulances in the Metropolitan to arrest the situation due to the seriousness of the fire.

He further registered displeasure over the lack of water hydrates at the market including other public spaces, which he said is affecting their operation.

According to him, the personnel has been able to control the fire from spreading to other stores.

Mr. Baba revealed that 45 fires have been recorded in the Northern Region in the first two weeks of January.

He however attributed the cause of the fire to an electric fault.

By Nurudeen Ibrahim