Linda Boamah Asante
Deputy Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority, Linda Boamah Asante, has called on African governments to initiate policies and programmes to make Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) affordable and accessible to women.
This, she said, would help to reduce the hazards women are exposed to from using biomass (wood fuel and charcoal) to cook.
“All government agencies and institutions should have the plan to make sure that LPG is available to women because in Africa especially in rural areas, it is the women who do the cooking so they are the ones mostly affected by emissions from biomass,”Mrs. Linda Boamah Asante said while contributing to the discussion on the topic ‘LPG: An Integral Component of Energy Access for All’ at the just ended African Energy Week in Cape Town, South Africa.
Sharing Ghana’s story on LPG, Mrs. Asante told the gathering that Ghana had in place a National LPG Policy to achieve 50 percent penetration by 2030.
She said the Ministry of Energy, through NPA, has rolled out the Cylinder Recirculation Model to make LPG accessible to all, especially women.
Responding to a question on whether the NPA is educating consumers on the safe use of LPG, Mrs. Asante mentioned that the Consumer Services Unit and Gas Department have been visiting schools, churches, mosques and markets to sensitise them on the safe use of LPG.
“We have been sensitising consumers. When we visit the schools and markets, we encourage women to use LPG because it’s reliable, clean, safe and more convenient. It has fewer health hazards as compared to woodfuel,” she said.
In her concluding remarks, Mrs Asante stated that the Cylinder Recirculation model programme has come to stay, stressing that LPG is the way to go for Ghana.
A Business Desk Report