The Minister for Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has launched the Rural LPG Promotion Programme with the distribution of 5,000 pieces of 6 kilogramme cylinders and cooking stoves at Axim in the Nzema East District of the Western Region.
The Rural LPG Promotion Programme was first launched at Garu-Tempane in the Upper East Region in November 2013, where 1,500 pieces of 6kg cylinders and cooking stoves were distributed on a pilot basis.
The roll-out of the programme was started in 2014 with the distribution of cylinders and cooking stoves in the Tano South, Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, Tolon and Central Gonja districts. In all, 14,500 pieces of 6kg cylinders, cooking stoves and related accessories have been distributed in five low access districts so far.
The programme is expected to be intensified, and massive distribution exercises carried out in low access and low income rural areas nationwide in 2015 and beyond. Under the programme, the government distributes free cylinders, cooking stoves and all related accessories to beneficiaries in low access and low income areas in districts across the country.
This is done to enable rural dwellers switch easily from wood fuels to LPG without paying for the initial investment costs. The government seeks to create demand in these low access areas to incentivise private LPG marketing companies to set up there.
Launching the programme at Axim last week Friday, the Minister indicated that the Rural LPG Promotion Programme is targeted at addressing the challenges associated with the use of solid fuels, including reversing the detrimental effect of the continuous burning of the more than 13 million tonnes of firewood annually; reducing respiratory diseases acquired from the firewood, and saving mothers and children from the dangers of fetching firewood and drudgery.
“It is expected that the programme will improve and increase access to LPG in rural areas from the current 3% in 2012 to 15% by 2016,” he added.
Mr. Buah also announced that the government was revising its policies to implement a National LPG Accelerated Promotion Programme, which will deploy two main separate but integrated approaches to distribution of LPG: Constructing major refilling facilities in strategic areas that should be determined by the Ministry of Petroleum, and setting up small scale refilling outlets to serve rural/low income areas identified as low access areas nationwide.
The major refill plants would serve metropolitan, urban and peri-urban areas with filled LPG bottles in a Cylinder Recirculation Model, popularly known as the Coca Cola model, while the small scale refilling outlets in the very rural areas which are not easily accessible, would ensure that Ghanaians in such areas also have access to LPG. This will create a linkage of jobs and opportunities, including door-to-door delivery services and vending of LPG cylinders for local folks.
The objective of this new policy, he added, is to develop a safe and standard market based structure with the cylinder recirculation model as the basis for marketing domestic LPG, auto gas and other LPG applications.
It is also meant to enhance the capacity of existing regulatory institutions, in order to meet the regulatory requirements of the new market structure and ensure the existence of a robust and standard health safety and environmental practices in the production, marketing and consumption of LPG. Present at the programme were the DCE for Nzema East, traditional leaders and the general public.
