“Why Should This Happen?” — Vice President Opoku-Agyemang Visits Collapse Scene
Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang has called for strict compliance with building regulations and full accountability following the collapse of a building at Avenor in North Kaneshie, describing the tragedy as the kind of preventable disaster that should no longer be happening in Ghana.
The Vice President visited the scene on Sunday, June 7, where one person has been confirmed dead and two others remain trapped beneath the rubble as rescue operations continue.
Speaking to journalists at the site, she made no attempt to soften her message, insisting that the country already possesses the knowledge and the rules needed to prevent such incidents — what is lacking is the will to enforce and follow them.
“There are many things we can all prevent, and it is about doing the right things — we know them. We don’t need to wait. As we are standing here, we are being told that somebody is trapped in there. Why should this happen?” she said.
She acknowledged that rules are rarely popular but stressed that they are the foundation upon which safety and order are built, warning that consistently ignoring them leads inevitably to avoidable loss of life.
“Rules may not always make sense, and nobody likes them, but we need rules. Otherwise, nothing will function,” she added.
The Vice President went further, urging all parties with any connection to the collapsed structure to cooperate fully with investigations and submit themselves to accountability processes — framing the response to the tragedy not as a bureaucratic exercise but as a collective moral obligation.
“We need to do proper investigation. We must all open ourselves to be held to account. It’s all of us. This really maybe needn’t have happened. But what could we have done? What do we do to ensure that going forward, we are not seeing many like these? We all know the right things to do. Let us make them possible,” she urged.
Her visit and remarks signal that the government is treating the incident with the seriousness it demands, even as rescuers continue their work to reach those still buried beneath the debris.
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