Deputy Chief Fire Officer (DCOF), Kru Ayarko-Attobrah Greater Accra Region, on Wednesday warned that no personnel of the service would be spared if caught charging exorbitant fees for Fire Safety Certificates.
He said the service was prepared to weed-off bad nuts in order to save the good image of the Ghana National Fire Service.
Speaking to journalists on the activities of the Fire Safety Departments of the Service in Accra, DCOF Ayarko-Attobrah said the region had received many complaints about activities of some personnel, who were going about extorting monies from the public.
He said in some instances, the service had noted that personnel, who were not even assigned to the Department of Safety, went to inspect premises, demand and take exorbitant fees from the public.
The Regional Fire Officer said to step the monitoring of such activities, henceforth, all personnel assigned to the Safety Department of the Service, would be issued with special identification cards.
He entreated the public to look out for personnel's ID cards, Fire Safety ID cards as well as an Authority Note from the Regional Command before dealing with them.
"People, who failed to do so, do that at their own peril," he cautioned.
"Some personnel, who are not supposed to go about collecting Fire Safety Fees, should stop else would be exposed and made to face the full rigors' of the law."
He hinted that acquisition of the certificates was not cumbersome and urged the public to call the offices of the service for clarification.
He said due to the various complaints received, the Department of Safety was reshuffling personnel.
"We want to save the image of the service and would not allow a few bad nuts to drug our name into the mud," he stressed.
According to him, Legislative Instrument (LI) 724 mandated the service to collect fees for Fire Safety Certificates for their various institutions namely hotel, education institutions among others.
He reminded personnel of the core objective of managing and preventing undesired fire outbreak.
According to him, the GNFS, which had about seven directorates have various distinct functions which out be played effectively.
These include Research and Monitoring, Logistics, Rural Fire, and Public Relations.