A senior officer in charge of operations at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle station of the Ghana National Fire Service, Divisional Officer (DO) Eric Nortey, is advocating for laws to jail unscrupulous scrap dealers who go around stealing steels from fire hydrants in the country.
According to the officer, an inspection exercise conducted by his outfit recently to determine the state of fire hydrants in it catchment areas revealed damages caused by the activities of scrap dealers.
Mr Nortey said it is time management of the service lead campaign for the government to institute laws that will ensure persons who steal steels or block access to fire hydrants get a prison term at least five years.
Speaking to the myrepubliconline.com, Mr Nortey said the exercise conducted took place at areas such as Avenor, Carprice, Newtown and Mallam Atta Market area heading towards Paloma.
The rest are ATTC, Adabraka, Farisco and finally Nkrumah Circle where the team inspected 65 fire hydrant of which 92% of these fire hydrants are well functioning, 2% were below average and about 1.5% not functioning.
The remaining 4.5% have been sealed while residents in those areas have turned some of the fire hydrants into dumping sites.
According to Wikipedia, fire hydrant or fire cock is a connection point by which firefighters can tap into a water supply. It is a component of active fire protection.
The officer revealed further that fire hydrants which were seen covered by the iron steels, scrap dealers have removed about 60% of these steels exposing the hydrants ajar.
The officer said when it comes to the hydrants pitch itself, the scrap dealers have also removed about 5% of the steals.
Mr Nortey is therefore calling on the Ghana National Fire Service to Institute fire hydrants inspection week nationwide to identify and fixed all non functioning hydrants to make the work easy when it come to firefighting in the country.
The officer said when it comes to the hydrants pitch itself, the scrap dealers have also removed about 5% of the steals.
The officer stated that another thing that was also discovered was out of many Fuel Filling Stations inspected in these areas only one was having a fire hydrants which was contrary to the laws.
