Vice-Chairman for the LPG Marketing Companies Association of Ghana, Gabriel Kumi, has reiterated calls to the government to subsidise the cost of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).

He said LPG has become an alternative to charcoal and wood fuel and once it becomes expensive, people will switch to the alternative.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show, on Wednesday, he stated that subsidising the cost of LPG will significantly improve the consumption of the product in the country.

The call comes after JoyNews checks revealed that the hike in the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has led to an increase in demand for charcoal as an alternative for cooking.

Mr. Kumi intimated that the only way to reverse this trend is for government to absorb part of the cost of the product.

“The only thing is to make LPG affordable. Currently, LPG is more like a luxury product. The masses of our people that we need to rope into the consumption of LGP are not able to afford the product and the only way is to make LPG affordable to the people. It’s for this reason that some countries like Cote d’Ivoire are subsidizing the product.

“We believe the first step is to take off all those taxes from the LPG and bring the price down. LPG is highly price-sensitive. Any pesewa increase or decrease in the price of LPG goes a long way to affect its consumption. So if you take 18% off the price of LPG I can assure you you’re going to attract a lot more people," he stated.

Mr. Kumi is worried that the trend, if not checked, will end up depleting the nation's forest cover.

Meanwhile, the Forestry Commission is taking measures to safeguard the country's forest reserves. The Commission said the surge in the demand for charcoal is a clear depletion of the vegetation cover. It thus has initiated the distribution of seedlings for plants that can be used for commercial charcoal production.

Ashanti Regional Manager of the Commission, Augustine Kofi Gyedu said, “ …what the Commission is doing is to levy those trucks that carry charcoal, we have checkpoints in various locations, we charge 80 pesewas per mini bag of charcoal."

He revealed that the Commission uses funds accrued from this levy to create plant nurseries.

Also, on June 11, 2021, the President launched the maiden Green Ghana Day project, a massive and aggressive afforestation drive that saw the planting of about seven million trees to restore the country's degraded landscape and contribute to global efforts to fight climate change.

Mr. Kumi said all these efforts will be in vain if nothing is done to improve the consumption of LPG in the country.

"We know the government launched a campaign and invested money in planting some trees. All the efforts put in by the Forestry Commission and the Ministries will come to naught if we don’t make the effort to improve the consumption of LPG in Ghana," he stated.

Government has set an agenda to make the product accessible to many by increasing consumption of the commodity from 25% to 50% by 2030. Mr. Kumi has argued that this objective may not be achievable, considering the speed with which LPG price is skyrocketing.

“The 50% penetration is something that is impossible to achieve because this objective was set in 2018. As we speak now, LPG consumption in Ghana is on the decline. We did an average of over 30,000 metric tonnes in 2019, it came down to 39,000 metric tonnes in 2020, in 2021, we did 28,000 and our projection for this year is 25,000 metric tonne. So obviously, the target of achieving 50% penetration by 2030 should not even be spoken about,” he said.