COCOBOD Denies Ownership Of Fuel Reservoir That Suffocated 3 Technicians

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) says the fuel reservoir in which three people died during maintenance work does not belong to it.

According to management, the said fuel dump tank is owned, used and managed by Produce Buying Company (PBC), a limited liability company which is neither a division nor subsidiary of COCOBOD.

“The exercise that the technicians were engaged to undertake has absolutely nothing to do with COCOBOD,” the state company added.

This follows media reports of a tragic incident which claimed the lives of three technicians inside a reservoir in Koforidua.

According to available information, the three – Michael Ashie, Jonathan Kokroko, and Paul Ocloo – were part of a five-technical team that was hired to maintain the reservoir on the premises of COCOBOD’s Koforidua office.

Sources say in an attempt to rescue their colleague who had entered the reservoir, two other workers also succumbed to the same fate.

An emergency response team, comprising personnel from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) Municipal Secretariat, Effiduase Police Command, Ghana Ambulance Service, and the Ghana National Fire Service, later arrived at the location to aid in the retrieval of the victims’ bodies from the underground tank.

Reacting to the development and circulating report, COCOBOD in a statement insists the reservoir does not belong to the company.

It further called on the media to be circumspect in its reportage as the security services are investigating the incident.

“Our preliminary investigations have further revealed that the relevant security and regulatory agencies are fully involved in the matter to ascertain the cause of the unfortunate incident and put in place measures to forestall future occurrences.”

“We wish to assure our media friends that our doors are always open for discussions on issues of this nature and all inquiries concerning the operation of Ghana’s cocoa sector,” the statement added.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NaDMO) says the three persons who died might have been misled on the exact content of the tank, leading to their reported suffocation and death.

Explaining circumstances surrounding the incident to JoyNews, Deputy Director of NADMO at the New Juabeng North Municipal Assembly, Kankam Twumasi Daniel said, their preliminary investigations have revealed that the company failed to disclose the exact content of the tank to the workers.

 “What our investigations can say is when they entered into the pit they couldn’t breathe because probably they might have been misled that the tank was containing diesel but in actual sense it contained adulterated fuel, probably there might have even been petrol or other chemicals being mixed,” he said.

The situation he believes might have led to their neglect of safety measures on site.

“It could be possible because when we brought them out of the pit, they were not wearing any such things on them,” he said.

He added that it is early days yet to make any conclusive remarks as investigations are still ongoing.

“But what I can say is they might have been misled by people who contracted them. I can’t really emphatically say who, but what the two guys who didn’t die, they told us that when they were coming, the leader of their team, that is, Mr. Ashie told them that they were going to work on a diesel reservoir.

“And per their experience and per my knowledge as I know, diesel mixed with water cannot suffocate someone but maybe other chemicals might have been part of the mixture,” he said.