Major (rtd) David Bills presenting the items to COP Rose Bio Atinga
About 16 policemen whose residential apartments were razed down by fire on the block H wing of the (police) barracks near the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) in Accra, have received support.
The families were yesterday presented with some household items by the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) while efforts were being made by the police administration to get them a permanent residence.
Items presented included 20 bags of rice, 20 bags of maize, 10 cartons of cooking oil , 30 packs of roofing sheets, 70 poly mats, 70 mosquito nets, 70 pieces of blanket, 30 pieces of bucket and basins, 10 boxes of roofing nail, 20 cartons of soap and 70 pieces of students’ mattress.
The items, according to Major (rtd) David Bills, the deputy chief disaster officer at NADMO, is to help support the victims in the interim.
He said NADMO, on receiving the news of the fire outbreak, decided to assist the victims in the short term get relief items for their families.
The Director General in-charge of Research and Planning, COP Rose Bio Atinga, who received the items on behalf of the affected victims, said the police administration provided the victims and their families with accommodation while investigations into the inferno continued.
She said some of the personnel were on the field working when the fire started and could not take out anything from it.
“All their belongings got burnt with the exception of the uniform that they were wearing,” she asserted.
COP Bio Atinga assured the affected victims that as the Fire Service was conducting its investigation, the Police Service was also conducting its own and in due course, the report would be made public.
Meanwhile, some of the affected personnel who spoke to the paper after the presentation confirmed that they were even happier with the quarters offered them.
They claimed that the new apartment was spacious enough to contain their families.
During the inferno, about 10 rooms and wooden attachments were gutted.
Information gathered indicated that a man believed to be mentally deranged, first saw the fire and raised an alarm but nobody paid attention to him. However, no casualty was recorded.
By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey