THE GHANA National Fire Service (GNFS) is grappling to employ a legal officer to man the national legal directorate of the service after its legal officer was deployed to one of the regions, leaving the service to operate currently without a lawyer.
Brigadier General John Bosco Guyiri, the acting chief fire officer of GNFS told the Judgment Debt Commission chaired by the Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau yesterday when he appeared to apprise the commission of notices of intentions it had received from people to sue, as well as a pending case in court.
In all, he tendered in documents to the commission which pointed out that they have a pending case and three notices to sue, but was quick to clarify that the service recently lost a case in which they were made to pay a judgment debt of over GH�1 million.
�We had a case in court which was ruled against the service and they exacted the payment of the service to the supplier in the case involving the supplier of camouflage uniform, that case was dealt with and the service was made to pay a judgment debt of over GH�1m.�
According to the acting chief fire officer, though the earlier ruling was appealed it did not save the service from paying the huge debt.
�We appealed. It went as far as to the Supreme Court. The case was brought back to the High Court and finally ruled against the service. The service was represented by the Attorney General and there was a full trial.�
Asked by Counsel of the commission, Kofi Dometi Sokpor if he had come with the service lawyer, he said, �My Lord, incidentally we don�t have a lawyer in the service now, we are still trying to get one to employ.�
When asked if they have a legal directorate, he responded in the affirmative saying, �We have a legal directorate and we had one fire officer and he was basically a fire officer who went and read law, but he had to be deployed to man one of the regions. So currently we don�t have a lawyer.�
Again, when counsel asked if the legal directorate is empty, Brigadier Guyiri maintained, �we don�t have a lawyer now. There is no legal person at the service right now.�
When Counsel asked him whether it is the case that many people don�t want to join the service�s legal directorate, because it is a fire service, the fire boss said, �My Lord I cannot tell why lawyers don�t want to join the fire service.�
The Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau also inferred that lawyers make huge sums of money in private practice than to sit down and to be paid monthly salaries.
Touching on how the service paid the over GH�1m judgment debt awarded against it, he said, �My Lord, what happened was that, the court got details of all our accounts, particularly, at the Ghana Commercial Bank and the Bank of Ghana. Our accounts were garnisheed and in the course of the ruling they called the managers managing these accounts to the court and ordered them to pay.�
Asked if the service had gone bankrupt, he said the amount was taken from various sources of the service.
The Brigadier General told the commission that though they lost the case, from his layman�s point of view, he thought they had a case, but it went the other way.
�The exhibits are still there for all to see. The facts are still there some are torn, some have names tags as evidence for all to see and I thought we had a case even after appealing. But, the commissioner said it may also depend on how the case was started and what the receiving officers may have told the court.�
Also appearing before the commission were the assistant controller of Prisons of the Ghana Prisons Service, Twaumasi Appiah, the deputy legal officer of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gbekle and Anthony K. Kokoroko, legal officer of the Ghana Police Service all appearing in respect of cases they have received with intentions to sue and those pending before court.
The Chief Director of the ministry of defence, Alidu Fusseini who was accompanied by Group Captain Mike Kwame Appiah Agyekum and Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Amoah Boateng responded to questions on a compensation claim and an action involving one Kwasi Adjei and two others against the Attorney General.
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