Mr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Executive Director, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said his outfit was determined to build capacity of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) operators to make them more efficient and professional in the discharge of their duties.
He said investigations conducted by his outfit revealed that most operators along the value or supply chain including; drivers, managers, supervisors, pump attendants were challenged by safety and best practices, hence their resolve.
He said most of them did not have formal training on how to handle LPG before manning the plants.
Mr Kokofu said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr William Hayfron-Acquah, Acting Director of Field Operations, EPA, at a three-day training workshop organised by the Agency for 136 LPG pump attendants and other relevant stakeholders in Ho on environmental safety and international best practices.
The Executive Director disclosed that about 96 people lost their lives between 2007 and 2015, while some 486 sustained various degree of injuries in a 19 reported cases involving LPG refilling plants related accidents according to Ghana LPG Discussions Document of 2016.
He said the Agency had therefore initiated a training and certification programme in 2019 to educate industry players to help avert future occurrences, disclosing that the training formed part of the Agency’s requirements for the licensing regime, which was aimed at ensuring persons without license could not operate as LPG Pump Attendants.
Mr Kokofu said it was also aimed at equipping the participants with requisite skills and knowledge on safe handling of petroleum products, how to respond timely and efficiently to their regulatory requirement of the Agency and how to manage their facilities to forestall accidents occurring at the stations.
He said the training provided a platform for industries to bring to the fore challenges confronting them regarding complying with regulations for pragmatic measures to be taken to address them.
The Executive Director said the relevance of the petroleum downstream sector to the growth and development of the country’s economy “cannot be over emphasised” as it facilitated the movement of people, goods and services across the country and beyond.
He said the sector witnessed significant growth in recent times with some retail outlets even at remotest part of the country, however, the growth had come with some challenges, including; concerns from public regarding proliferation of outlets in residential areas.
Mr William Hayfron- Acquah, in an interview with the media said each trainee would be issued with a certificate of participation, saying that from next year the Agency would embark on audit and evaluating assessment to ascertain if the participants were properly utilising the knowledge they had acquired at the training.
He said there would be another training for the operators after which they would be given a certificate of competence, adding that anybody who wanted to venture into the business had to register with the EPA and go through the training.
Mr Hayfron-Acquah said those who were already in the business would also be required to show evidence of having trained their staff before they could renew their license to continue with their venture, stressing that any station whose staff had not been trained such a staff would be sacked and station closed down.