The National Petroleum Authority of Ghana (NPA) has set up a National Licensing Committee to regulate the siting and operation of filling stations in the country.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the NPA, Moses Asaga, the new Committee will ensure that all the agencies responsible for giving a permit for the operation of filling stations in the country are coordinated in a sequential manner to interact among themselves.
This he believes will help to address the issue of filling stations bypassing other agencies in the course of seeking a permit to operate.
Mr Asaga disclosed this in an interview with Myjoyonline’s Austin Brako-powers on June 1, 2016. Joy News reported that some of the fillings stations which were demolished following the June 3, 2015, flood and fire disaster that resulted in the death of over 154 Ghanaians have started springing up.
A special mention was made of the filling station at Miles 7 which residents describe as a major source of worry for them.
Reacting to the report, Mr Asaga said those filling stations have not come to the notice of the Authority adding he will dispatch the monitoring team to investigate the issue in the coming days. He said the NPA has put in place some measures to ensure that no filling station is constructed near what he described as “density map.”
He explained that “In the density map of Ghana, areas that are red spot would mean that we will not grant you a license because we think that those areas should be prohibited because of a higher concentration of filling stations there.”
“We have also come up with new rules that new filling stations should be 500 metres apart especially on the highway,” he said adding “we don’t want a situation where you have filling stations that are 100 metres or 200 metres apart.”
These measures Mr Asaga believes will be enough to avoid the issue of having filling stations sited on waterways resulting in disaster.
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