Some fuel stations in Cape Coast are using their grounds as drinking spots, restaurants and dancing halls, a development that exposes their patrons to danger.
People sit and enjoy their liquors and cigarettes at places where vehicles are supposed to drive to the pumps, thus preventing vehicles from purchasing fuel at those places.
Platforms are mounted at some of the fuel stations, where musicians perform to entertain patrons.
Khebab vendors have also taken advantage of the situation to ply their trade at the stations and they use naked fire to grill the meat they sell to the public.
Traffic jams
On festive occasions, when revellers pour into entertainment spots at fuel stations, vehicular traffic is created at the Pedu Junction. Such entertainment activities take place near the University of Cape Coast Second Gate and around the Adisadel College.
The new entertainment spots have also become a haven for sex workers.
Fire service on the issue
According to the Public Relations Officer of the Central Regional Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Mr Abdul Wasie Hudu, the fuel stations were given guidance on the safety measures to employ when engaging in such activities.
He said also that GNFS personnel were deployed to the fuel stations on festive occasions to contain any possible fire outbreak.
EPA�s reaction
When contacted, the Central Regional Programme Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Daniel Kofi Sappor, said the development had come to the notice of the EPA and that some of the owners of the stations had been educated on the dangers involved in converting their stations into restaurants, drinking spots and dancing platforms.
�We wrote and invited them here to school them in the dangers involved in what they were doing,� he said.
Mr Sappor conceded, however, that some of the station managers were being recalcitrant.
�You see, some of these facilities are multi-regulated and so it will be difficult for us to decide on what to do to them�, he added.
He, however, contended that the situation was not a permanent feature but happened only during festive occasions.
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