A total of319 Officer Cadets (OC) of Intake 19 of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) who were eligible for promotion into the Senior Officer Corps, having passed the promotion examination and selection process have graduated in Accra on Friday.
Intake 19 which comprised 219 males and 100 females from the various regions across the country was serving officers of the Service.
They underwent training to expose them to managerial skills and tenets of officership required at the Senior Officer Corps of the GNFS in order to earn them the position of the Assistant Divisional Officer Grade I (ADO I).
Speaking at the commissioning ceremony last Friday the Minister of the Interior, Ambrose Dery, noted that human resource development was one of the critical pillars of the government’s development agenda, hence personnel undergoing such training were crucial for their expertise required for the Service.
“Associated with the manpower development of the Service are the equipment and other logistical support for you to operate efficiently and effectively. Government in this direction will continue to retool the GNFS with the needed fire fighting trucks and other equipment for you to carry out your mandate,” he added.
Assuring of government’s commitment to assist the Service, the Interior Minister said government had decided to purchase two hydraulic platforms for the Service to deal with high rise buildings.
Mr Dery said the world was fast developing technologically, for which reason the Service had to adapt itself to enable it make the most of the era in which we lived.
“It behoves on the Service to carefully chart a new direction in terms of training of personnel, procurement of equipment and other logistics to be in tandem with the technological changes and developments in fire prevention and management,” he said.
Noting that fire management globally ensured safety, he assured of “government’s full support in this regard as we cannot sit down unconcerned as a nation where lives and properties worth millions of Ghana Cedis are destroyed by fire because the simple and basic fire precautionary measures were not observed nor adhered to.”
He urged the administration of the GNFS to intensify public sensitisation on fire prevention and called for an attitudinal change on the part of all Ghanaians toward fire safety, stating that “fire safety is a shared responsibility.”
Mr Dery applauded the Cadet Intake 19 for their great inputs and charged them to translate them into commendable output as they took up higher responsibilities.
Awards were presented to some cadets who excelled during the training and tuition sessions. They included the overall best and foot drill award which went to Officer Cadet (OC) Lomotey N. S. Frederick; the Commandant Award which was presented to OC Khadija Yakubu; whilst OC Dickson Zodkie Cofie received the Best in Academics award.
Present at the ceremony were the Acting Fire Officer, Mr Julius Kuunor; the GNFS council chairman Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi and the Chief Director of the Ministry of Interior, Adelaide Anno-Kumi.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR AND JESSEL THERSON-COFFIE
