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The Ghana Water Limited (GWL) Accra West Region and the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) have committed to strengthening collaboration to ensure that functioning hydrants are strategically positioned to allow quick response times during emergencies.
At a stakeholder engagement between the two institutions in Accra last Tuesday, the two institutions pledged to form a team to standardise hydrants and ensure proper communication.
They stated, among others, that theft of hydrant covers, connection difficulties caused by discrepancies of GNFS water hose and size of the hydrants, dumping of solid waste into hydrants by the public, and the lack of communication between the institutions were some of the challenges affecting their operations.
The GWL Chief Manager of Accra West Region, Francis Lamptey, expressed the region’s commitment to coordinate with the GNFS to address operational challenges and to escalate lessons learned to the head office for policy adjustments.
He acknowledged the importance of water availability during fire outbreaks, but said a continuous water supply was not feasible due to intermittent supply schedules.
He said different areas received water at varying frequencies, ranging from three times a week to once a week.
However, he said, the region’s demand management plan would be shared with the GNFS to help locate water sources during emergencies, such as fire outbreaks, and also have detailed digital maps to provide water supply details.
Mr Lamptey added that his outfit was ready to engage GNFS in maintenance and replacement activities to prevent fire service personnel from arriving at hydrants only to find them inoperable.
He expressed concern about fire activities on distribution lines and warned that public dumping of solid waste into hydrants obstructed access during emergencies.
He said there was a need to improve public awareness and collaboration to prevent such incidents and called for collective efforts to ensure the safety of the community and to prevent fire outbreaks.
The GWL Regional Distribution Manager, Kingsley Dzebu, said there was difficulty in serving the western part of Accra West due to insufficient water supply.
Despite the challenges, he stated that the demand management plan was helping to ensure that customers were served.
Fire Divisional Officer (DO) II, Marsell Kwami Avadu, said hydrants were a critical part of GNFS operations, adding that 80 per cent of the service’s mandate relied on water.
He said during emergencies, multiple fire tenders from different jurisdictions might be called to a scene, which put pressure on the jurisdiction involved.
He suggested the need to divide jurisdictions into zones based on the location of functioning hydrants to improve response times.
