<<Print>>

It has now been revealed that the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) borrows fuel to fight fires when duty calls. This revelation comes after news broke that since January this year, government has failed to release funds allocated for the fuelling of tenders to fight fires at the various regional and district offices of the GNFS. Acting Public Relations Officer of the service, Mr. Elis Robertson Okoe, discredited earlier report by the Daily Heritage newspaper that in case of emergencies, service personnels were forced to neglect their duties because there is no fuel to rely on. Speaking on Peace FM's midday news, the acting head reported that rampant outbreak of fires, was the main reason they couldn�t fuel their tenders. Despite this bottleneck, Mr. Elis Robertson Okoe claims they are allowed to borrow fuel and pay later after the credit bills have been presented to their account department. The 'Daily Heritage' newspaper claims to have conducted an investigation and found out that since the beginning of the year, senior officers have been using their own monies out of their meager salaries to fuel the tenders for operations. It continues that only GH�1,000.00 was released by the government to some regional offices last month with other district fire posts receiving a paltry sum of GH�300.00. But Mr. Robertson Okoe refuted this claim and explained that through government subventions, the service were able to purchase fuel to go about their duties. �We have an arrangement with Goil Ghana that allows us to fuel our tenders from their stations. In regions where the tenders run out of fuel early, they are allowed to credit it and bring the bills to our account department for reimbursement. As at now, the account office is distributing coupons for fuel which would be used in September�, he stated.