The Minister for the Interior, Prosper Douglas Bani, has commended the Chief Fire Officer, Dr Albert Brown Gaisie, and the Command of the Ghana National Fire Service for raising the image of the service.
The minister made the commendation on Friday at the maiden ‘Happy Hour’ of the Fire Service for its officers and men, held at the Fire Academy and Training School at James Town in Accra.
Hon Bani was full of praise for the transformational leadership of the service under the leadership of Dr Brown Gaisie which has led to the repairs and putting in commission over 18 fire tenders which had been grounded and otherwise earmarked for auction.
The ceremony was also used to award 142 deserving officers who have served meritoriously for 10 years and more with gold, silver and bronze medals. Three others who had excelled in firefighting and rescue in major incidents, including the June 3 fire and flood twin disaster, the Tema Central Stores Fire and the Kintampo-Tamale road accident were awarded with medals and citations respectively.
Dr Brown Gaisie said that some officers who sent the service to court for legal redress concerning their promotion have been prevailed upon to withdraw the case for amicable settlement.
The interior minister said two months earlier, he had been at a similar function of the service to commission a medical centre meant to provide medical services for officers and men of the service in Accra, Tema, headquarters and Fire Academy and Training School. That, he said, was very laudable.
Outdooring the ‘Fire Watch’, Hon Bani asked the editorial board to embrace the tenets of good writing so as to give its readers the best. He asked the service to find ways of sustaining the magazine so that it would be a regular feature on the service’s calendar to ensure adequate internal dissemination of information
Dr Brown Gaisie pointed out that the ‘Fire Watch’ has come to replace the ‘Fire Alert’, a quarterly magazine which was not regular and narrow in scope in terms of information that it carried.
He said the ‘Watch’ was national in character, wide in scope in terms of information, and more appealing, and added that it would serve as a two-way channel of information flow from command to personnel and vice versa.
The chief fire officer expressed concern about the recent spate of trapping and burn to death of individuals and families in their homes, stressing that people should not only be concerned with their security, but to balance their safety with security. He advised the citizenry to ensure that there is always an emergency exit to escape from their homes, should there be any fire outbreak.