Call for alternative fire fighting system (page 3)

A Ghanaian geologist, Dr Emmanuel Amamoo-Otchere, has called for the establishment of what he termed community-based alternative fire fighting systems to help fight fires swiftly in localities.
He also suggested that occupants of markets such as Kantamanto, Makola and Kaneshie, all in Accra, as well as Kotokuraba in Cape Coast and Market Circle in Takoradi, should be willing to support the creation of mini fire fighting units within their locations at their own cost for their safety and that of their wares.
In a paper titled, “Developing Alternative Community-Based Fire Fighting Systems”, Dr Amamoo-Otchere, who is a spatial planning consultant, development geoinformation services, pointed out that such a system should be maintained with technical back-up by the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) which had the technical know-how, as well as the responsibility, to prevent fires in the country.
He said the creation of community-based fire fighting systems could be backed with bye-laws to make them compulsory in all communities.
In addition to the metropolitan and municipal authorities working with the banks and insurance companies to raise funds to create the fire-prevention systems, Dr Amamoo-Otchere called for a form of susu system which could be arranged in the communities to raise funds for the project, without waiting for external assistance.
He said it was unfortunate that many Ghanaians were not proactive when it came to the prevention of disasters but usually waited till serious harm had been caused, only for those in authority to rush to the victims with promises which came from taxpayers, adding that citizens should be made to know and appreciate community-based self-protection against such hazards.
He explained that specific environments such as what existed at the Kantamanto Market and which usually promoted fires would remain and develop further in the next few years until the informal commercial sector of small-scale traders had no more incentives to carry on with that sub-sector of the urban economy.
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