By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, Oct 9, GNA - SNV Netherlands Development Organisation has advocated for the setting-up of an Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee for the Clean Cookstove sector.
Mr Dramani Bukari, Senior Renewable Energy Advisor, Voice For Change Partnership (V4CP) Programme, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, said such an Inter-Ministerial Committee would coordinate the successful implementation of the Improved Cookstove (ICS) sector programmes and policies in Ghana.
ICS typically describes a stove with higher efficiency or lower emissions than a traditional stove, including being safer to use and more durable.
He said all the current policies on Clean Cooking, which were scattered within the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) should be brought together into a single consolidated national clean Cooking Policy with a regulatory authority.
Mr Bukari made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra.
Mr Bukari called for a consolidated national policy framework specifically for improved Clean Cookstoves to help address the challenges of household air pollution.
Citing from a World Bank report, Mr Bukari said energy access in Ghana was skewed in favour of electrification.
He said only 21.7 per cent of the population of Ghana was having access to clean cooking technologies and fuels.
He noted that 22.1 million people in Ghana still relied on solid fuels for cooking and heating; adding that "we fall below the global average access rate of 59.1 per cent".
He said traditional cooking methods had serious health, environmental and economic consequences; such as acute pneumonia, lower respiratory infections, lung cancer, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and stroke.
According to a 2017 report by the World Bank, 80 out of every 100,000 population died from pollution.
The Energy Ministry 2015 annual report indicated that about 13,700 deaths were recorded annually in Ghana from smoke related illnesses.
Mr Bukari said Ghana's intended contributions was to expand the adoption of market-based cleaner cooking solutions and to scale up access and adoption of two million efficient cook stoves up to 2030.
He however, noted that there were no clear strategies provided for the attainment of this.
He said under the Strategic National Energy Plan 2006-2020, the Government supported the promotion of woodstove efficiency programmes and the regulation of the use of firewood and charcoal for cooking in restaurants, chop bars, canteens located in regional capitals.
He said the current split of policies does not provide incentives for ICS market development: tax or fiscal policy for the sector.
He mentioned a number of constraints facing the Clean Cooking sector to include high duties on imported stoves and taxes on ICS construction material.
Others were insufficient institutional support structures, limited awareness creation around ICS and the private sector struggling to fund awareness campaigns from their operational budgets, thus increasing cost of doing business.
On the way forward, Mr Bukari said Ghana would learn from Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, China and Uganda with successful ICS programmes and policies.
He said that Kenyan in its implementation of the Clean Cookstove Policy reduced import duty from 25 per cent to 10 per cent for ICS.
He added that Kenyan also placed a zero-rating value added tax (VAT) on ICS, raw materials, and their accessories.
"Can the exemptions from tax under the Renewable Energy Act for renewable energy products and the application of REF be exploited to benefit ICS?" he quizzed.
GNA
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