Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, has justified why the Fire Service officers at Akyem Begoro travelled in a taxi cab with extinguishers to put out fire.
Social media on May 28, 2021, was inundated with a video of the personnel arriving at an emergency scene in a chartered taxi to douse flames.
The video sparked many reactions as the fire-fighting specialists arrived at the scene without their fire trucks filled with water or other extinguishing agents but only basic fire extinguishers, which amounted to nothing.
But according to the Minister, the Fire Service Officers went to the fire scene in a taxi cab because at the time of the incident, the station’s water tender number FS706 was temporarily out of commission.
He explained the water tender was being worked on by the Eastern Region Maintenance team as a result of clutch failure.
Mr Dery revealed this while responding to a question by MP for South Dayi, Rockson Dafeamekpor.
He said at 10:25 hours on the said day, a distress call was received at the Begoro Fire Station reporting an outbreak of fire at Bethlehem, a suburb of Akyem Begoro involving a single room apartment.
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Fire Service personnel arrive in taxi to douse flames at Akyem Begoro [Video]
The minister said the Bunso Fire Station was called in as a stop-gap measure but was asked to return when the crew got to the scene and realised that the fire had been brought under control by the people in the community at 10:41 hours.
However, he assured Parliament that the faulty water tender had been fixed and returned to the station.