Fire Service fights prank calls

 The Ghana Na­tional Fire Service (GNFS) is set to track prank calls to unmask the people behind such unwholesome act.

The exercise, which will be done in collaboration with a group of Information Technology (IT) firms, will ensure that persons found culpable are handed over to the police for prosecution.

Prank calls are hoax telephone calls made with the intention of deceiving or misleading recipients.

According to the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the GNFS, Divisional Officer Grade III (DO III), Desmond Ackah, the service receives on average not less than 30 prank calls daily.

This, he said, translated into a total of 311,283 prank calls across the country in the last five months of the year.

He said even though the figure represented a reduction of 9.8per cent of that of last year’s figure of 345,265 the situation was worrying.

Mr Ackah stated that some of the calls were made by both adult and children culprits alike.

“I Am calling to greet you,’ ‘My beard is on fire,’ are some of the messages we receive any time we pick up their calls,” he said.

In addition, he indicated that some men make calls to the service just to propose love to our female personnel on duty.

DO III Ackah stated that prank calls to emergency services posed a significant threat to the efficient operations of the GNFS , adding, ‘’Repeated prank calls can place undue stress on the operational readiness of the fire service, frequent false alarms may reduce morale and decrease the overall effectiveness of emergency response teams,” he added.

He said during prank calls re­sponse, genuine emergencies may be neglected, increasing the risks to public safety.

The Deputy PRO noted that as part of efforts to address such menace in the society, the Service would prosecute offenders after series of education to address menace.

DO III Ackah further urged

 the public to desist from such prank calls to emergency security services.

The Fire PRO appealed to par­ents and guardians to monitor their children when they are on vacation, adding that such prank calls increase when they were on vacation.

He called on the public to partner the GNFS in its operations in order to ensure incidences of fire out­breaks reduced in the country.

“Combating fire outbreak is a shared responsibility, all must come on board to help reduce the incidence of fires with results affects the country’s socio- eco­nomic development and the human resource,” he added.

He assured of the Fire Service continuous determination to reduce incidence of fire outbreaks through its intensified education to the public.

DO III Ackah urged the public to call the service on its emergency numbers 192/112.

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