Premised on the intention to promote the use of clean energy, the government of Kenya plans to issue poor households with free gas cylinders and two-burner low pressure table top cookers.
The plan was revitalized after an earlier one failed to kick off in the midst of sub-standard products and illegal resale to the public under current market rates.
The Petroleum ministry is seeking suppliers of the first 100,000 cylinders and 80,000 cookers and meters to kick off the plan that targets eliminating the use of firewood for cooking in low-income estates.
Petroleum Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau said the challenges experienced in the earlier scheme have been useful in designing a fraud-proof one that will be scaled up as funds become available.
“We are rolling out a Pay-As-You-Go model where the households will use their mobile phones to buy cooking gas as little as Sh5 to cook,” Mr Kamau said.
“This is to enable them abandon kerosene and wood which are dirty fuel and start using LPG given that we shall have eliminated the main barrier, which is the initial cost of buying a cylinder and cooker.”
The meter attached on top of the cylinder will show locations of the users and detect tampering, which may come from attempts to dismantle and sell it.
The fresh scheme will kick off in Nairobi’s major slums ahead of expansion to other towns with the 2019 census having offered a critical pointer to the target areas.
The census revealed that firewood was the most commonly used type of cooking fuel with 55.1 percent of the households using followed against gas at 23.9 percent.
Additional Source: Business Daily
