The Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Marketers Association has called on the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to suspend the implementation of the Cylinder Re-circulation Model in September.

According to the Association, an immediate implementation will present several challenges as members of the general public have not received adequate briefing on the programme.

Speaking to CitiNews, Vice President of the LPG Marketers Association, Gabriel Kumi, said there is already some sort of confusion on how the initiative can proceed effectively, hence the need for more time for clarification.

“NPA has set next month for the implementation, and so we have less than a month and the public confusion indicates that consumers are not ready and so there is a need to educate the public on the model so that we don’t confuse the public in the roll-out of the model.”

“The current system is so entrenched that if you want to introduce a new system, you just don’t throw the old one out and suddenly introduce the new one, we have to do that slowly. Our initial discussion was that we should buy back all cylinders in the system because there are a lot of them out there that are obsolete and need to be changed, and it will be difficult to tell them to simply discard them and get new ones in anticipation of the model’s roll-out," he said.

The aim of the policy, Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM), is to ensure that at least 50 per cent of Ghanaians have access to safe, clean and environmentally-friendly Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) by 2030.

It is also meant to improve safety standards, reduce gas leakage and explosion risks, and create more jobs in the LPG sector.

Under this initiative, LPG Bulk Distribution Companies will sell LPG in bulk to Bottling Plants, where empty cylinders are filled and tested for quality and safety.

Filled cylinders will be transported in specialised trucks from Bottling Plants to Exchange Depots, where they are sorted and stored for distribution.

Exchange Depots will then supply filled cylinders to Cylinder Exchange Points (CEPs), where consumers can register with their Ghana Card and pay for any quantity of LPG they want.

The final stage involves consumers exchanging their empty cylinders for filled ones at CEPs, without owning or maintaining the cylinders.