The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is on a collision course.
It is a rare clash of interests that has had many posing questions about the wisdom in the GNFS’ issues with the state water supplier. For us and indeed many others, the Chief Fire Officer’s (CFO) points are too unsound to pass the test of logic.
Following the inferno that gutted a four-storey building at Okaishie in the Central Business District of Accra the GNFS have decided to address the media and for that matter Ghanaians about what happened and palpably deflect inefficiency on their part as being responsible for their seeming helplessness in the face of the inferno.
Although there was a lot of combustible stuff in the affected shops hence the re-ignition as observed for the next day after the main fire had been extinguished doubts were raised about the efficiency of the firefighters.
In the course of the press conference hosted by CFO Ekow Blankson, he hurled blame at the Ghana Water Company Limited for not being forthcoming at a time water was needed to douse the blaze.
Until the disclosure by the CFO we have never known that the GWCL is by the terms of an unknown deal expected to supply water to the GNFS at fire scenes. Anyway the water managers have parried the CFO’s allegation.
They too have proffered explanations and with Ghanaians not privy to an arrangement by the water supplier to provide water tankers at fire scenes for the replenishing of water for tenders the GWCL appear convincing, at least for now. Not so, the CFO who could not done without a press conference at least for now.
In previous fires some as serious as the Makola inferno there was no evidence of GWCL tankers or private water tankers providing water to fire tenders.
The CFO has a lot of work to do if he wants to convince Ghanaians that indeed the GWCL should be held responsible for his personnel’s inability to douse the fire in a day.
The ‘no water’ syndrome has become synonymous with the GNFS when their tenders turn up at fire scenes. Much as we empathise with the Service for the obvious challenges confronting it the CFO should not have opted for the blame-game module. Desperation appears to have underpinned the press conference he hosted and this has rendered the discourse unproductive.
Let the CFO expedite investigation into the cause of fire and make recommendations that would enhance the Service’s ability to respond to fires as first responders productively.
The untenable impression by the public that fire tenders sometimes turn up at fire scenes without water or insufficient quantity of it to douse fires does not cast the GNFS in good light.
The GNFS as part of the emergency services and therefore of national security value should be respected and seen to be efficient.
Deflecting blames to other agencies as being played out by the CFO should be avoided in future. Press conferences should be convincing not worsening the situation with aggravated grey areas.
Victims of the inferno, shop owners who are now counting their losses should not hear the blame game because that would only aggravate not mitigate their pain.
Government is about retooling the service with a whopping amount of money. Let the authorities look at the issue of hydrants. Racing to hydrants at Kaneshie and Circle from Accra Central sounds crazy when there is an inferno. That should have been the issue not whether GWCL water tankers tail fire tenders at fire scenes.