Government equips Fire Service

The Government is to obtain 10 million dollars loan from the Spanish government for procurement of 40 fire tenders to increase the fleet of vehicles of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS).

Mr Elias Adablanu, the Chief Fire Officer said eight out of 43 fire tenders procured through a 13.9 million dollar loan from the Exim Bank of United States has arrived at the Tema Port.

He said this at a meeting with personnel of the service at Wa during a three-day working tour of the Upper West Region.

The GNFS would take delivery of the remaining tenders and their accessories by the end of September this year, he said.

Mr Adablanu said the government intends to equip the service to render quality service and urged the staff to avoid laziness and work as a team.

Mr Adablanu noted that the Service was the only security organisation in the country without barracks and appealed to the government to address the problem.

Mr Edward Ayebire Deputy Chief Fire Officer in-charge of research and monitoring, answered questions, which centred on training, placements, transfers and career progression within the service.

He said the service would resume promotion examinations as from next year and urged the personnel to learn hard.

"Those days when promotions were given without considering knowledge and performance are gone. Everybody must be prepared to work hard for promotion even if your father is the chief fire officer."

Mr Ernest Aklamah, the Regional Fire Officer, said the regional office had trained about 2,000 fire volunteers in the region and appealed to the service to equip and motivate them to assist the personnel when the need arises.

He said through education programmes, they have been able to influence some chiefs in the region to make bush burning a punishable offence.