About 2000 prank calls are made to the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) every day via its emergency lines, for a total of nearly 800,000 prank calls per year.
Prank calls, as used by the Ghana National Fire Service, are calls intended to trick cheerleading firefighters into responding to a false emergency.
Ghanaians were thus urged by Mr. D. K. Nisawu, Regional Fire Officer (RFO) of the Greater Accra Regional Command, to resist prank calls in order to preserve scarce resources for people who actually require their assistance.
The GNFS’s operations are adversely affected by this crucial issue, according to the RFO who provided the advice at a stakeholders’ engagement in honor of 2025 International Firefighters Day.
Despite their apparent innocuousness, the prank calls have major repercussions, according to ACFO11, as they squander resources, raise risk, and undermine the GNFS and the nation as a whole financially.
As the service reports an increase during vacation when children were on holiday, he urged stakeholders to assist in educating the public about the repercussions of prank calls.
“We need to raise awareness about the seriousness of this issue and the consequences of making these calls. We can do this through public awareness campaigns, community outreach programs, and, most especially, education in schools,” ACFO11 Nisawu added.
He claimed his organization would use call tracing and blocking technologies and collaborate with telecom companies to restrict or ban numbers that are known to make prank calls.
“We will also collaborate with the law enforcement agency to prosecute prank callers,” the RFO stated.
He urged everyone to notify the police of any questionable activities or prank callers.
The goal of the “Appreciating Our Heroes: Say No to Assault on Firefighters and Fire Truck Vandalism” stakeholder engagement was to establish a long-lasting relationship with the participants.
Speaking on the theme, Mr. Michael Dedey, a fellow of the Ghana Institution of Engineering (GhIE), stated that it was necessary to start examining the high degree of indiscipline and the country’s inadequate law enforcement.
He urged society and firefighters to consider some of the problems and start prioritizing the good of the country over personal gain.
“Fire prevention and firefighting must be an integral part of city planning and development. The system where investigations into causes of fire are not shared and labeled as national security must stop,” Mr Dedey said.
While praising the GNFS’s efforts in spite of the difficulties, the engineer urged appropriate city planning and development to provide convenient access to fire scenes.
In order to stop the recent wave of vandalism in the nation, some attendees of the event shared their experiences with the Ghana National Fire Service and advocated for increased public education.
Every year on May 4, International Firefighters Day (IFFD) is observed to honor courageous firefighters who put their lives in danger to save others. Additionally, it is a day to honor individuals who were hurt on the job or tragically lost their lives while performing their duties.
Source: newsthemegh.com