It's been a year since the unfortunate disaster occurred at kwame Nkrumah circle. There have been several memorials and out pouring of grief across the country including promises by officialdom that the  loss of life and property should never and would never happen again.

What seems to have been forgotten during this outpouring of emotions is how the Engineering failed on the night. The main cause for the loss of over 150 lives and property worth over a billion cedis was the explosion that occurred during the flood.

By the accounts of the 5 member investigative committee that was set up by the Minister of Interior, Mark Woyongo,  the water from the floods made its way into the underground Fuel storage of the Goil Filling Station and displaced the fuel contained in the tank. The displaced fuel, in turn found its way onto the street and mixed with the rain run off.

According to the committee, what supposedly caused the ignition was "the dropping of the lit Cigarette Stub by Seth Kwesi Ofosu onto the floating fuel" which they deemed as the ultimate cause of the fire.

What seems to have been forgotten during this outpouring of emotions is how the Engineering Failed on the night

A well engineered Filling station would not have leaked fuel onto the flood waters. A well Engineered System would have taken into consideration the fact that the filling station was located in a flood prone area and would have taken that into consideration during the design stages. It would have had properly sized pipes and tanks that would have been properly pressure tested and included well specified valves, seals, etc.

A well engineered system would have made provision for regular maintenance, that would have been well documented and strictly adhered to.

The non adherence to standards in the engineering profession and the non enforcement of sanctions on unlicensed practitioners has led to so many engineering failures in various sectors of the economy.

Seth Kwesi Ofosu's throwing away of the cigarette stub in such close proximity to a filling station should indeed be abhorred, but the systemic failures that allow such poorly designed engineering systems to continue to exist should be our greater concern. No life deserves to be lost in such a senseless fashion.