The Assin Central Municipal Command of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has pledged to sanction all institutions or homeowners that fail to comply with fire safety requirements.

To avoid the sanctions, it has advised all private and public institutions to contact the GNFS for directions to comply with the directive to prevent fire outbreaks.

Divisional Officer (DOIII), Paul Tawiah, Municipal Commander in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said a number of institutions and homeowners had abused the Fire Service order to acquire fire certificates for far too long.

He warned that the Service will go all out to prosecute those
who fail to comply with the directive, saying a legislative instrument Article 17, clause 24 of the Fire Service Act, stipulates fire precaution regulation and made it mandatory for institutions to acquire fire certificates.

The acquisition of the fire certificate makes it obligatory for the Fire Service to cover such institutions from fire hazards by conducting an annual forensic fire audits on their buildings to ensure well-functioning fire prevention devices.

The Service had since November 2020, commenced an exercise to review all facilities to ascertain the efficiency of their devices to help prevent and detect fire outbreaks at the facility, he revealed.

It had also trained fire inspectors to access public facilities at random to find out compliance with safety standards and to sanction defaulters, while training and educating the citizenry on fire safety had been intensified to reduce fire disasters in the country.

Transport Unions, traditional and religious leaders, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and schools are some of the targeted institutions that are undergoing education on fire safety measures.

Mr Tawiah advised the public to be safety conscious in the use of electrical gadgets such as-cylinders to prevent domestic fire incidents.