All prank callers to Ghana’s emergency call centre will be blocked from Thursday, 27 March 2020, as part of measures to ensure that persons who genuinely need help, get it, the Ministry of Communication has announced.

Out of a total of 1,902,926 calls recorded by the 112 emergency call centre, 1,887,125 were prank-related calls with only 15,801 being real emergency-related calls between January 2020 to 16 March 2020.

This means 99.16% of cases within that period were prank calls.

In a statement, the Ministry said the emergency number has been set up to improve the country’s emergency response rate to “facilitate assistance to all in need”, as efforts are intensified to reduce the spread of COVID -19.

According to the Ministry, however, access to the emergency number line is “being hampered by the incessant prank-calling of some unscrupulous callers”, indicating that current “prank calls to the emergency number cover more than 95% of the call traffic.”

The Communication Ministry has, therefore, cautioned: “From 27th March 2020, all prank callers will be blocked to get Ghana’s emergency system to work effectively. It is the most practical way of ensuring that those in need of help, get it”, and urged the public to support its collective drive to succeed by not pranking 112, as “real lives might be in danger”, including those who need help to deal the deadly COVID-19.