•He adds that they do not offer tanker services to the Ghana National Fire Service
•The National Fire Service failed to fight Monday's fire on time due to empty tanks
The Communications Manager at the Ghana Water Company (GWCL), Stanley Martey, has countered claims by the Chief Fire Officer at the Ghana National Fire Service, Ekow Blankson, that suggests that his outfit failed to supply them with water to fight the Makola fire outbreak.
On Monday, July 5, at about 9:00 AM, the central business district recorded a fire outbreak that ravaged a three-story building. The inferno destroyed goods worth thousands of cedis due to the failure of the Fire Fighters to quench the fire that initially started at the top floors of the building.
Officials from the Fire Service in a Press Conference on July 6, 2021, explained that the failure on the part of the GWCL to supply them with water on time hindered them from handling Monday’s fire.
Mr Blankson said: “Ghana National Fire Service was the only fire agency that stormed the building. We had to call for extra pumps. I was very much disappointed because we had an arrangement with Ghana Water Company Limited contractors to supply us with water. Unfortunately, they did not come and the message I had from my operations officer was that the last time they were given coupons instead of cash. If you never complained about receiving coupons instead of cash at that time but decided to keep quiet until another outbreak of fire to disappoint the fire service, it’s quite unfortunate. We had to bring extra resources. The army and police came for protection purposes. Aviation was about to come, but I stopped them because I thought the fire was under control.”
But, the Communications Manager at the GWCL has noted that, “nobody can blame Ghana Water” as they do not “supply them (Fire Service) with water via tankers.” Mr Martey in an interview on Citi News and monitored by GhanaWeb argued that they supply water via their pipelines and not tankers.
“I am privy to the sound from the press conference held by the Chief Fire Officer, and he said we failed to supply them with water via tankers. I’m sorry, Ghana Water Company does not do tanker service. Even when we did the free water supply during Covid last year, we all heard that we had to rent private tankers to be supporting us, and we paid them. We also don’t have any contractors that supply water. They are private entities, and we also hire them when we need their service,” he said.
He again added that “The fire hydrants are fitted to our main distribution lines and on almost every kilometer, there is a fire hydrant. So we supply water via our pipelines and not tankers. He can’t conclude that our pipelines are often dry because when the three initial tankers came they were full, and I was there personally and there was no point in time that they didn’t have water in any of the tenders, so nobody can blame Ghana Water for it,” he added.
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Communications Manager at the Ghana Water Company, Stanley Martey