Accra, April 1, GNA - Twenty-eight employees of Esther Baidoo Bakery, a small-scale enterprise, lost their jobs when fire destroyed the bakery and items valued at 300 million cedis. Also destroyed were personal effect worth 50 million cedis in two rooms of a three-bedroom apartment.

The fire, which started at 0230 hours on Wednesday, March 31 at Mallam in Accra, extended from the Bakery to the three-bed room apartment, located 10 metres away from the bakery, where Ms Esther Baidoo, owner of the Bakery lives.

When the Ghana News Agency (GNA) got to the scene of the incident on Thursday, Ms Baidoo and her employees were seen squatting and sobbing.

The items destroyed included accumulated savings of the employees, furniture, electrical appliances, oven, gas cylinder, clothing and sewing machine. Narrating the incident to the GNA, Mr Yaw Paul, a Baker and an Employee, said at 0230 hours on Wednesday, he went to the Bakery to light the burner of the oven. He said, after lightening the burner, the gas cylinder that was about five metres away from the oven exploded into uncontrollable flames.

Mr Emmanuel Koomson, husband of Ms Baidoo, indicated that on realising the flames, he called the Ghana National Fire Service and managed to reach them after 15 minutes. He said by the time personnel of the Fire Service stationed at the State Transport Company (STC), got to the scene about one hour later, "everything we have in this world including those of my wife's employees were destroyed".

Mr Koomson said he made an official report at the Odorkor Police Station about the incident at 1130. Ms Baidoo said, although the Bakery had been insured with the Gemini Life Insurance Company (GLICO), she was yet to inform the Company about the incident. She said all the documents covering the insurance were burnt and that she was waiting for a friend in Cape Coast, who led her to insure her business, to accompany her to GLICO.

Ms Baidoo and her husband appealed to the National Disaster and Management Organisation (NADMO) and other philanthropists to come to the aid of their employees.