The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has expressed concerns over increasing prank calls to its emergency lines.
Prank calls, which involve falsely reporting emergencies or creating false alarms, pose serious challenges to the fire service’s ability to effectively carry out its essential functions.
Prank calls divert valuable resources and attention away from legitimate emergencies, potentially causing delays in response times to actual life-threatening situations.
The GNFS, responsible for handling fires, accidents, and other emergencies, must sift through numerous prank calls to promptly identify and respond to real crises.
According to the Ashanti Regional Fire Commander, ACFO Henry Fatai Giwah, despite a decrease in fire outbreaks in 2023 compared to 2022, particularly in the Ashanti Region, the surge in prank calls hampers the GNFS’s efforts to combat fires.
“Prank calls persist. Every day when you go to our control room, even right now. You see the number of prank calls that come. Averagely, more than 200 a day.
“And sometimes, if you don’t do your inquiries properly and you dispatch, you realize you dispatch to the wrong place. And that’s why, at times, when you even call, we want to call you back.
“One thing we do is that when you call, because of these prank calls, when you call fire service, we always want to call you back. And even listen to the environment where you are,” Mr Giwah said on Citi News.
He urged callers to desist from such acts as it leads to delays in responding to distress calls.