Ghana: Vehicles for Police

Michael Boateng

14 July 2011

Sunyani — Vice President John Dramani Mahama has announced that the government had secured funding to acquire 700 vehicles for the Police Service, to make them mobile and fight against the armed robbery menace in the country. According to him, bullet proof vests and communication gadgets would also be acquired for the service.

Speaking at the commissioning of a fire tender for the Techiman Municipality recently,

Mr. Mahama said apart from the police vehicles, the government is also in the process of securing another 27 fire tenders for distribution to districts that currently lacked the facility. He noted that government is determined to help the security agencies with the right equipments that would facilitate their work.

The Vice-President had addressed a durbar of chiefs, Assembly Members and security agencies after which he handed over the brand new fire tender to the local fire station.

He stressed that the government would ensure that fire tenders imported into the country conform to international standards

The Techiman fire tender, with registration number FS 449 is among the first batch of fire tenders imported by the government for distribution nation-wide

The new fire tenders are all fitted with automatic gears and other novel operational apparatus.

Vice President Mahama announced that the government had placed an order for more than 50 similar computerized fire tenders from India and more than 20 from Belgium.

He expressed concern about the destruction of properties and human lives in the wake of fire outbreaks in the country and the obsolete fire tender vehicles that could not help trained fire personnel to control such fires.

Lessons have been learnt from those sad events, hence the Government will ensure that standardized fire tender vehicles are provided to curb the menace, the Vice President said.

“It is very tragic when children die in fire”, he noted and disclosed that gas masks would also be imported to make rescue missions less dangerous for the fire men and women.

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Fire Officer, Paul Opoku, on his part, commended the government for exhibiting a high sense of commitment in ensuring that the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) gets more logistics.

On the issue of logistics in the region, the Regional Fire Officer indicated that there were 16 fire stations out of the 22 districts in the region, and that efforts were being put in place to ensure that by the end of this year, the remaining six would have fire stations.

He said the Brong-Ahafo Region received four out of the 54 fire engines recently procured by the government.

According to Opoku, the region was expecting a consignment of fire engines to be distributed to areas like Kintampo, Nkoranza and other areas, depending on the total number the region would be receiving.

He disclosed that fire outbreaks had been reduced drastically, particularly, with bushfires, when compared with previous years, due to an early crusade launched during the Farmers Day celebration, and the formation of a special taskforce to deal with group hunting, which is a major cause of bushfires in the region.

The Regional Fire Officer further disclosed that from January to May, this year, 64 reported cases of domestic fires has been recorded, four industrial fires, 15 vehicle fires, 10 electrical fires, 34 bushfires and eight petty fire outbreaks, all totaling 135 fires.

He continued that the cost of damage within the period was GH¢516,887,510, whilst the reported number of road traffic accidents was 25, injuries recorded 25, and deaths 38 deaths.

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