The Ghana National Fire Service (GFNS) has warned people who call their control rooms with issues that do not border on fire outbreaks to desist from the practice as it interferes with their work.
Persistent calls from these prank callers often engage the lines and prevent others who are in dire emergency situations from getting through to receive the necessary help.
Prince Billy Anaglatey, Assistant Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, disclosed these to The Finder when speaking on challenges that interfere with their work in putting out fires.
According to him, about three years ago a tally done from 6am to 6pm in their control room recorded about 2,600 prank calls in a day.
To experience the situation at hand, I was allowed into the control room for about 15 minutes and during that period I was asked to pick the calls that came through.
In 10 minutes, a young boy, judging from his voice, called in about 15 times demanding that I send him two cedis worth of talk time.
The workers in the control room stated that some also call in and tell them things that are unprintable.
The Deputy PRO stated that the callers, when cautioned, sometimes get infuriated and descend on the workers without cause.
He seized the opportunity to appeal to parents to educate their children not to play with emergency numbers and use it only for emergency cases.
Touching on other issues, Mr Anaglatey noted that most premises with car parks allow head-on parking, which is against safety.
He held that reverse parking should be encouraged instead of head-on parking since it prevents chaos during an evacuation.
The Deputy PRO said every building should adhere to their occupancy load and avoid exceeding it; if exceeded, pressure is mounted on exit points during emergencies.
He cautioned the general public to fix early warning systems in their buildings that would notify them when there is any fire outbreak.
Mr Anaglatey asked the public to memorise GNFS’ emergency numbers – 192 for all networks and 0302772446 – saying some people call wrong numbers and blame his outfit that their numbers never go through.
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