PHOTO: Cape Coast Castle on fire

• Posted on July 1, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Fire gutted a shop within the premises of the Cape Coast Castle in the Central Region on Sunday destroying items worth millions of Ghana Cedis.

According to sources, the fire started around 12pm and was finally brought under control around 3pm.

Items such as Kente cloths, beads, African wears, bags and footwear, among others, were burnt to ashes.

It took the intervention of personnel from the Ghana Fire Service to prevent the fire from spreading to other parts of the castle. What started the fire was not immediately known.

Castle in a Deplorable State

Meanwhile, reports indicate that the Cape Coast Castle is currently in a deplorable state. Information had it that an appeal by the owner of the shop which was razed down by Sunday’s fire to authorities of the castle to renovate the leaking roof of the shop had not yielded any positive results.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that the shop owner had even written a letter to the managers of the place to be allowed to carry out repair works on the shop but they declined with the excuse that repair works could not be done by tenants.

Information available to DAILY GUIDE indicate that the roofs of most of the shops within the castle have been leaking and authorities seem not to care about the situation, compelling most of the traders to often close their shops whenever it is about to rain.

The traders, who trooped to the scene upon hearing the incident, wept uncontrollably and appealed to the government to undertake major renovation works at the place.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that a taxi driver called to inform personnel of the Fire Service about the incident since the workers on duty did not know the number of the Fire Service.

A source further revealed that the Fire Service personnel initially refused to go to the scene since they claimed people often made prank calls to make fun of them. However, they later moved to the scene to bring the fire under control due to the persistent pleas of the taxi driver.

From Sarah Afful, Cape Coast