Intensify Measures To Eliminate Fire Disasters - Amissah-Arthur Tells GNFS

The Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, has charged the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to intensify fire prevention and intervention measures to ensure the elimination of fire disasters. He said for as long as the service continued to be financed by the public, the GNFS had the responsibility to deliver quality service with regard to protecting lives and property without compromise. Mr Amissah-Arthur made the call at the eleventh GNFS Cadet intake graduation parade in Accra yesterday. The Vice-President, who was also the reviewing officer for the occasion, was honoured with the position of Honorary Chief Fire Officer of the GNFS. One hundred and sixty five cadet officers, comprising 58 females and 107 males, were graduated in all. The officers had been taken through a one-year training programme in varying subjects, including fire safety, leadership and management, road traffic extrication, loss control, electricity, among other subjects. Mr Amissah-Arthur said the country had been hit with several fire and flood disasters in recent times, requiring a review and an intensification of the operations of the service. Citing the June 3 twin fire and flood disaster, the central medical stores fire outbreak and the collapse of some storey buildings this year, he said the reports on those disasters had established that they could have been avoided by adhering to fire safety regulations. �Prevention is always said to be better than cure or management and, therefore, in order to prevent the loss of human lives and properties in the future, the service would have to intensify its operations,� he said. Charge Mr Amissah-Arthur, therefore, called on the service to intensify its fire prevention awareness campaign to ensure a fire disaster-free society as much as was possible. He also advised the service to ensure the good maintenance of all firefighting equipment the government had provided them with. The Vice-President called on the public to imbibe and always adhere to fire safety measures since fire prevention was a shared responsibility. Awardees Cadet fire officers, who had distinguished themselves in various fields, were awarded with citations, momentos and the fire man�s axe, a miniature symbolic axe to. The awardees were Officer Cadet Mercy Tagoe-Quarcoo who received the best in foot drill, Officer Cadet Charles Kingsley Amoh who received the best in academic award, Officer Cadet Samuel Doudo who received the Chief Fire officer award, while Officer Cadet Ezra Kpakpo Mingle received the overall best Officer Cadet award. Other dignitaries who attended the parade included the Minister of the Interior, Mr Mark Owen Woyongo, the Chief Fire Officer, Dr Albert Brown Gaisie, and the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, District Commissioner Of Police (DCOP) Christian Tetteh-Yohuno.