Fire service review operations

THE Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has drawn a five-year strategic business plan to review its operations to effectively deliver on its mandate of providing prompt and improved service to the public.
The plan, among other things, is expected to strengthen the organisational capacity of the service, improve the corporate image of the service and strengthen systems, procedures, rules and regulations to enhance efficient and effective operations, and acquire fire fighting equipment, communication gadgets, office equipment, logistics and physical infrastructure to facilitate operations nationwide with a required resources of GH¢274, 705 for the implementation of the plan.
The Chief Fire Officer, Mr Felix K. Ferkah, made this known to the Daily Graphic in Accra on the sidelines of the maiden partners conference of the service to brainstorm the plan.
The conference, which was on the theme: “Mobilising Technical and Financial Assistance to Fund the Financing Gap of the GNFS Five-year Plan (2008-2012)” sought to brainstorm and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the service, its opportunities and threats to create safer communities throughout Ghana.
Mr Ferkah said the service over the years had lacked the needed resources to enable it to purchase modern fire equipment to live up to its challenges and expressed the hope that with a new strategic business plan in place the cry of the service in terms of funding would be a thing of the past.
The Minister of the Interior, Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor, also told the Daily Graphic that since its assumption of office in 2001, the government had invested GH¢9.9 billion in the economy aside inflows from the banking sector mainly to resource some major institutions of state such as the GNFS.
He said the government recognising the challenges facing the service had through parliamentary approval contracted an Exim-Bank facility of more than $15 million for the purchase of turntables and fire engines for the service, adding that a parcel of land had been acquired at Ayikuma, near Dodowa, to build a modern fire service college that would serve fire personnel from other neighbouring African countries.
He said it was the collective responsibility of stakeholders to ensure that state institutions were developed to such a level of making its impact felt and expressed the hope that the GNFS was on the threshold of becoming the most dynamic fire institution in the West African sub-region.
Dr Addo Kufuor said replacing the name of the service with the Ghana National Fire and Rescue Service was intended to make fire rescue an integral part of the service and noted that fire institutions were moving away from the traditional way of doing things to embracing modern techniques.
Meanwhile, to improve the knowledge and efficiencies of fire service personnel in the country, the management of the service has held discussions with authorities of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to explore the possibility of establishing a faculty of fire engineering at that university.