EPA Reshuffles Regional Directors After Quarry Explosion At Shama

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has undertaken a major reshuffling exercise including the transfer of the Western Regional Director and others following the Shama quarry explosion that claimed five lives so far last Saturday September 9, 2023.

A letter dated Wednesday, September 13, 2023 and signed by the Executive Director, Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu and sighted by www.eagleghana.com asked the Western Regional Director, Dr George Diawuo to move to the head office in Accra for re-assignment.

The Central Regional Director, is to take over responsibilities in the Western Region. 

The Ashanti Regional Director has been moved to Accra and the Accra West manager moves to Accra East.

Meanwhile, the EPA in collaboration with the police have mounted a search for the co-owner of the quarry which exploded in Shama last Saturday.

The other owner, said to be a Chinese national, who was reportedly at the site at the time of the incident is said to have died in the explosion.

Through the assembly member of the area, the EPA has been able to speak to some workers who said they were not on the site at the time of the incident and added they started working in the company not long ago.

They have however provided the telephone numbers of the co-owner, a Ghanaian national, who is reportedly in Accra.

According to the Executive Secretary of the EPA, the police, EPA and Minerals Commission officers were able to reach him on phone last Sunday but his telephone lines have since gone off and has not been seen.

The Minerals Commission says its preminary investigation shows the that, the quarry was operating illegally without a license.

As a move to establish the full cause of the explosion and make appropriate recommendations to forestall future occurrences, the Western Regional Security Council has set up a 9-member committee to investigate the cause of the explosion which occurred in the Shama District.

The Regional minister Kwabena Okyere Darko who inaugurated the committee said the committee has two weeks to present its report.