The Engineering Council has stated that conducting a comprehensive forensic investigation into the collapsed Ofankor building will be difficult.
This is due to the fact that the building’s owners and caretakers violated a prior directive by clearing and disposing of all debris from the site.
“The Engineering Council, through two of its collaborative agencies, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the Ghana Police Service, were the first to visit the site to undertake an initial assessment.
“Since the building was in a walled compound, strict instructions were issued to the caretaker of the project to keep the place locked and nothing interfered with on the site until Monday, when a technical team from the Engineering Council was to visit.”
“Unfortunately, by the time the team got to the site on Monday, the owners and caretakers had cleared and disposed of the entire debris away from the site,” the council complained in a statement.
The Engineering Council, in the statement, however, said, together with other stakeholders, they will do their best to undertake the probe into the disaster using the information available.
“Together with its partners (Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Police Service, National Disaster Management Organisation, Local Government Service, Architects Registration Council, as well as the various professional institutions within the built environment), the Engineering Council will nonetheless do its utmost to ensure that it undertakes as much investigation as available debris, access to the site and information from the necessary collaborative state entities will enable,” it stated.
The Council therefore reminded the public that anytime there was a disaster, such as a building collapse, the location became a crime scene for which reason any attempt(s) to tamper with anything on site was a crime and hampered effective investigations into the disaster.
“The critical outcomes of this investigation will be shared with the relevant state authorities as well as the general public, together with recommendations to guide all affected parties,” the council added.
The collapse of the three-story building, located behind the Ofankor Market near Asofan, occurred over the weekend. The exact cause of the collapse remains unclear, but some sources attribute it to the heavy rains that had fallen the day before. Fortunately, there were no reported casualties.
An alert worker at the construction site noticed signs of an impending collapse and promptly sounded the alarm, ensuring the safe evacuation of all individuals from the area.
