The family of 32 year old Jeremiah Bediako who has drowned in the Boti Water falls in the Eastern Region is blaming management of the Falls for safety negligence.
Paul Atta, Uncle to the deceased tells Kasapa News, management of the Boti Falls must be held responsible for the incident because it failed to put in place safety measures to protect visitors of the water falls.
He is of the view that, if the facility had erected warning signals and made available safety materials and standby rescue team the incident wouldn’t have occurred.
A Junior brother of Jeremiah popularly known as Jerry recounted that, management of the facility were helpless when his brother needed someone to rescue him from drowning.
Jeremiah Bediako, Supply Manager of Mobile Enterprise located in Accra-Ridge drowned Tuesday when he managed to rescue one of his American friends who was drowning in the river.
He visited the site with two female American tourists who are in Ghana for adventure.
Kasapa News Eastern Regional Correspondent Kojo Ansah who has been with the rescue team reports that several search attempts to retrieve the body of Jeremiah Bediako have not been successful.
Divers mostly from Kpong and Shai -Osudoku have been hired to support the search team on Thursday. They are hopeful the body will be retrieved despite not being successful after several hours of search.
The Asesewa District Police Commander, ASP Kuchando and some police officers are supervising the rescue team.
One of the divers David tells Kasapa News, the gravitation force beneath the river and its dept makes it dangerous for even experience divers therefore management of Boti falls must erect danger zone signal to caution tourists who visit the water falls to swim.
The water level of the falls has risen high with high gravity due to the heavy downpours the region is experiencing making it dangerous for tourists who have less swimming skills but Management of the Boti Falls have failed to provide precautionary measures to draw attention of tourists to the dangers
There is no live jacket, no safety sign post, even the locally made boat at the falls is in tatters.
Assembly Member for Boti Electoral Area, Stephen Narh Tetteh tells Kasapa News several persons have drowned in similar fashion.
He said management of the Falls has dismissed the few experienced divers they were working with and replaced with someone who has no knowledge about swimming.
Information gathered indicates that about 13 persons have drowned in similar fashion for the past five years however management of the facility covers and block the incident from the media.
On Thursday, management of Boti falls attempted to prevent Kasapa FM’s correspondent from covering the incident. The Manager identified only as Mr. Keelson refused to grant interview to the reporter to answer salient safety negligence issues at the facility.
