‘This Is Our Cocoa Season’ – Kaase Residents Explain Rush For Fuel From Overturned Tanker

Moments after the incident, some residents rushed to the scene, throwing caution to the wind, in a bid to get fetch the spilling fuel.

The residents were seen approaching the tanker with buckets until the National Fire Service arrived to disperse the crowd.

The fuel tanker was reportedly carrying fifty-four thousand litres of diesel and was on its way to the Ashanti Regional Depot of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport Company (BOST) at Kaase.

“The main road had been blocked and the only alternative was this rough road and he didn’t get it right so the thing got down,” ADO II Ebenezer Graham explained the cause of the accident,” a resident, ADO II Ebenezer Graham, told Joy News.

Another man called David said: “I was called that our cocoa is ready for harvesting so I had to rush here. The Police were preventing us but we found our way. Tomorrow, the kids will go to school so I need the money. If things were good, we wouldn’t have risked our lives here.

“This year, we haven’t seen such accidents so we were wondering why. It mostly fall up there not here, especially in the Christmas season. I have sold three Kufuor gallons full of diesel, 120 cedis each.”

A man in his 50s also added: “Making money is very difficult so we had to take advantage of the opportunity to make some money. We know it can only light a flame if we used aluminium to syphon the fuel. So we soaked the fuel with foam.”

Some of the residents are said to have sold the fuel for GHc40 per gallon instead of GHc50 after siphoning from the fallen tanker.