The National Insurance Commission in its quest to reduce the rising occurrence of fire outbreaks in commercial buildings including outlets and structures for markets has taken steps to mitigate such.
The National Insurance Commission has intimated that from henceforth persons will be granted operating permits if they are given the needed clearance from the Commission.
This move is very necessary as it will help to reduce occurrence of fire outbreaks at commercial centres to the barest minimum, the Commission remarked.
The heightened occurrence of fires over the years has had very damaging effects on the economy. The country has incurred a lot of cost in the past to deal with occasional fire outbreaks with its accompanying negative effects such as loss of human lives, livelihoods, health problems and property.
Recently, there was a fire outbreak at the Odawna pedestrian shopping centre near the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange in Accra which led to the destruction of shops and wares running into millions of Ghana cedis. This left shop owners devastated and will require governments’ intervention.
The Head of Supervision at the National Insurance Commission, Seth Eshun speaking in an interview posits that his outfit is in talks with local authorities across the country to facilitate them to determine which commercial centres are fit for operation.
“We are in discussions with the local authorities and one of the purposes that we want to achieve with these discussions is to get to a stage where before they give any license for any commercial business, they will check if that building or if that space has insurance
“And we believe that if we do this, and we do it especially for our markets it will be a solution. So these are very early discussions and its one of the key things that we seek to do to help protect markets,” Mr. Seth Eshun added.
Mr. Eshun further asserted that with the current happenings the National Insurance Commission will make sure that all markets are mandated to have fire insurance coverage. In terms of premium payments, however, commercial areas which are deemed safer than others will pay less premium than other market places.
“What would happen is that markets that are not very safe would have higher premiums and markets that are safe would have lower premiums and that will be an added advantage to ensure that the markets that are there have the right safety measures”.
