Fire on Friday night gutted part of the central pay unit of the Accountant General's Department, destroying valuable documents, records of new entrants into the public service and equipment. The cause of the fire, which started after office hours, was not immediately known.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, an Assistant Commissioner of the Ghana Fire Service, Thomas Hyde said it took about 45 minutes to bring the fire under control after he had received a report on his radio. He said his men had to break into the building to quench the fire, which was spreading to other parts of the building.

Mr Hyde said because the service was well equipped they were able to bring the fire under control, adding, however, that the Service needed more equipment. He said the Service would start investigations into the cause of the fire immediately.

Mr John Prempeh, the Controller and Accountant General, who was at the scene told newsmen that he was called from home that there was fire outbreak in the parts of the Payroll Processing Division of the office. He said it was too early to ascertain the cause of the fire and that he was waiting for expert opinion on the cause.

Asked what document were lost in the fire, he said all historical data were safe because they were stored on tapes in computers and that the only data that were lost were the current data that were available for keying into the central computers.

He said that the fire would not affect general salaries but that only new entrants to the civil service may have their salaries affected by the incident since their data had not yet been keyed into the computers. Present at the scene were the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu and Mrs Grace Coleman, Deputy Minister of Finance.

At the time the GNA was leaving the scene, the Controller was making frantic efforts to get the Inspector General of Police to get more Policemen to guard the building to stop people from taking out any documents.