GNFS personnel contribute to pay water bills

Personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) at Peki-Avetile in the South Dayi District of the Volta Region, now contributes money at the end of the month to settle the water bills of the district fire station.

This is to forestall another disconnection of water supply to the GNFS station here.

Earlier this year, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) disconnected the station which was in arrears to the tune of more than GHȻ 1, 000.

The station, the only one in the district, remained without water for three months before the district assembly stepped in to settle the bill.

“Now, we contribute GHȻ10 each as soon as we receive our salaries, to avoid another disconnection,” Assistant Divisional Officer of the GNFS in-charge of South Dayi, ADO M. J. Osei disclosed.

According to him, several reminders to the regional headquarters in Ho as well as the national headquarters in Accra to take steps to ensure the prompt settlement of utility bill at the Peki-Avetile fire station received no response.

Apart from the water issue, ADO Osei said that the fire station was operating from the premise of the local community centre and that did not help matters for district fire command.

“There are churches holding programmes at the centre all the time, posing unbearable nuisance with the noise they make”, lamented the district fire commander.

In an interview with the Ghanaian Times here on Thursday, ADO Osei revealed that there were only 13 GNFS personnel assigned to the district with a population of more than 50, 000 and a land mass of 1,000 square kilometres, saying, “This is woefully inadequate”.

He said that the fire personnel included four females and a male who was recently involved in an accident and now unable to walk.

Meanwhile, ADO Osei said, the dreadful portions of the Eastern Corridor Road which runs through the district was posing danger to the operations of the GNFS.

Worse than that, he disclosed that the station lacked extrication gadgets used in rescue operations in times of motor accidents, to remove the victims from mangled vehicles.

According to him, four people perished needlessly in a road accident in the district recently because they could not be taken out of the vehicles in good time, due to the lack of appropriate gadgets for the GNFS personnel who rushed to the scene on a rescue mission.

The district GNFS commander said that plans were far advanced to relocate the fire station to Peki-Tsame on a large plot.

He said that the Peki communities were supporting the GNFS in various ways to facilitate the relocation.

FROM ALBERTO MARIO NORETTI, PEKI-AVETILE