Mrs. Linda Asante speaking at the event
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) is to engage with the Ministry of Finance to consider removing some taxes on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to make it more affordable and accessible to consumers.
A Deputy Chief Executive of the Authority, Linda Asante, who made this known, said the move, spearheaded by the NPA Chief Executive, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, was to encourage more women to use LPG for cooking to protect their health and save the environment.
That, she said, was in line with the government’s target to increase LPG penetration to 50 percent by 2030.
Mrs. Asante was speaking at a regional town hall durbar on Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) in Tamale.
Organized by the NPA, the durbar was attended by chiefs, security officers, public servants, LPG dealers, students and traders.
Mrs. Asante said smoke from charcoal and firewood exposed mostly women and children to lungs diseases, such as hypertension and also affected their eyes.
She said LPG, on the other hand, did not emit smoke, which makes it most safe and convenient means of cooking.
Mrs. Asante said the government had introduced the CRM policy to make LPG more affordable, accessible and available.
She said the recent introduction of tender process by the NPA for importation of LPG had reduced the cost of the product.
Therefore, she said, the reduction would cater for any additional cost associated with the CRM value chain in terms of filling cylinders and distributing same to exchange points.
“No huge jump of prices because of CRM. The tender process has brought down the price of LPG”, she said.
Mrs. Asante, therefore, urged the people in the north to switch from the use of charcoal and firewood to LPG to protect their health and preserve the environment.
She said within the few weeks’ time, consumers would begin to access filled cylinders at exchange in their communities.
For his part, the Head of Gas, Commercial Regulation of NPA, Obed Kraine Boachie said four LPG cylinder bottling plants – three in Tema and one in Kumasi – had been set up to fill cylinders for distribution to LPG marketers for onward distribution to cylinder exchange points.
He said the Authority had received applications for the setting up of bottling plants in Tamale and other areas.
Mr. Boachie said the CRM value chain would create more jobs and stressed that the existing LPG marketing companies would be the key drivers of the policy.
In her welcome address, the Director of Gas at NPA, Akua Ntiwaa Kwakye, said the CRM was a new way of distributing LPG in a safe and convenient manner.
The Zagu Lana, Chief Yakubu Nantogmah, who chaired the occasion, bemoaned the continuous felling of trees for charcoal and firewood for cooking.
He said the present generation had a duty to protect the environment for future generation, hence the need for the people to stop cutting down trees and switch to the use of LPG.
Officers from the Ghana National Fire and Rescue Service staged demonstrations on how to put out fire on cylinders using wet towels and fire extinguishers.
A Business Desk Report