After months of wait and postponements, Ghanaians are expressing general happiness over the commissioning of some 307 ambulances to provide emergency services across the country.

Speaking to some Ghanaians in the capital, they lauded government for following through on the promise of providing an ambulance each for the various constituencies across the country.

“It is what we were expecting the government to do, we all appreciate government fulfilling the desires of the nation.” A Ghanaian told Ghanaweb.

“It is a great step taken by the president and we hope and pray that he will do more of that”. Another said.

Whilst the commissioning of the ambulances has met the general endorsement of Ghanaians, the grandeur surrounding the ceremony held for the commissioning seems to have drawn divided reactions from Ghanaians.

Giving their take on the ceremony held at the Independence Square on Tuesday, some Ghanaians said the commissioning was not justified and could have probably been done in a modest way.

“It should have been on a low tone probably. But having to commission it amidst lots of merry making and going round making it look as if it’s a political party achievement…… It’s the whole Ghana that’s going to benefit from this and so it shouldn’t be politicised.” A Ghanaian shared his opinion with GhanaWeb.

“It is not necessary; the reason is that if they sent the ambulances to the various hospitals and districts without the ceremony it would’ve also helped so that they saved the little money used for the ceremony.” Another Ghanaian shared.

In the defence of government, others said the ceremony was justified as it served as a platform for the government to tell Ghanaians the importance of the initiative and to also help government to showcase its achievements.



“Everything has to be clear for everyone to see, so the government commissioning the ambulance for the whole country to see, yes it’s good.”

An intriguing part of the Tuesday commissioning was the introduction of a new call number for emergency services.

For ambulance and other emergency services a new number which is 122 has been introduced for people to call whenever they require an emergency service.

In a bid to find out about the knowledgeability of Ghanaians regarding the emergency number, we found that even though majority are aware of the existence of the number, they did not know specifically what the number is with the exception of only a handful of people who were able to mention correctly 211 as the new distress number.