DAILY GRAPHIC, November 10, 2012, Back page. ‘Equip fire service for emergency situations’

Story: Mary Ankrah
Following the collapse of the Melcom Shopping Centre at Achimota in Accra, a senior official of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has underscored the need for the state to equip the service to deal with emergency situations in future.

He said although the GNFS had the human resource and the expertise in disaster management, equipment to handle emergency situations was woefully inadequate.

The acting Public Relations Officer of GNFS, Divisional Officer III, Mr Ellis Robinson Okoe, made the suggestion in an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the passing-out parade of 298 recruits in Accra yesterday.

According to him, the GNFS currently used manual equipment and needed more sophisticated and earthmoving devices to handle emergency situations, especially in the event of the collapse of buildings, earthquake and floods.

“If not for the timely intervention and benevolence of the private companies that volunteered their heavy equipment for the rescuing of the trapped victims in the Melcom disaster, it would have been more difficult to handle the situation because we lack those rescue devices,” he said.

In addition, Mr Okoe said in most disaster situations, the fire service depended on the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) for some equipment and assistance.

To handle similar disaster situations more efficiently in future, he appealed to the government to do its best to provide the GNFS rescue management with the necessary and modern technology devices to facilitate disaster rescue operations.

Earlier at the passing-out  parade, the Deputy Minister for the Interior, Mr Kobby Owusu Acheampong, said the government would continue to provide the service with state-of-the art equipment and other logistics so as to make the work of firefighters much easier and less hazardous.

He also used the occasion to urge the recruits to be more diligent, vigilant, impartial and professional in the performance of their duties in the run-up to the December election.

As part of the ceremony, the GNFS inaugurated an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory to enhance the professionalism of its personnel.