Portions of the Buipe Central Market was gutted last Thursday with more than 20 stalls razed to the ground, while rendering many market women out of business.

The cause of the fire is not yet known but personnel from the Central Gonja District Command of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) told the GNA that the incident was still under investigations.

The Buipewura, Abdulai Jinapor II, speaking to the media in Buipe, after visiting the market to assess extent of damage, called for support to rebuild the market immediately to ensure that the women continued with their businesses.

He expressed concern about the alarming rate of fire outbreak in the country, saying, “People are deliberately setting these fires for their personal gains and until we go beyond the Fire Service to investigate them little progress would be made”.

He alleged that in democratic countries such as Ghana, coup d’êtres could no more take place and the only way was for some people to engage in negative acts to defame the government of the day so that the citizenry would lose faith in the Government.

He said, “We need to, therefore, go beyond using the personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service and seek the services of the National Security to unravel the mystery fires in the country to ensure that business persons do not suffer from the practice”.

“I am not just saying this because the Buipe Market has burnt but I am more concerned about the livelihoods of market people, especially women, who suffer the most when these markets are burnt,” he stressed.

The Buipewura said Ghanaians were united and gave the assurance that those who were involved in the burning of the Buipe Market would be brought to book, if found.

He, however, commended the Central Gonja District Command of the Ghana National Fire Service for the swift response to bring the fire under the control and called on the District Assembly to consider building market pavilions to replace the current wooden structures.