COOKING GAS BROUHAHA IN AMBAZONIA

• Interim Government Updates
• November 01, 2022

Cooking Gas Is Back But Not The Price In Bamenda

The prices of basic is now the responsibility of traders and shop owners. They determine how much each must be sold, with the consumer left with no protection from the so called regularatory body which is the colonial Ministery of Commerce.

One of the commodity experiencing price hike since October is domestic cooking gas. The price left from FCFA 8000 to FCFA 15,000 in scarcity.

Now that the different brands of cooking gas are seen at retire shops, the price is still to go down to the initial FCFA 8000.

Now that the gas is available, why is it still expensive than before?

For several weeks this October, there was acute shortage of cooking gas in Southern Cameroons Ambazonia.

With the shortage in the supply of cooking gas lately, there was a hike in price to the tune of FCFA 15 000 from the normal FCFA 8000 in Bamenda.

The scarcity is now but history, but the price of this necessary commodity for household users is like maintained at FCFA 10,000. Making it difficult for the common one who depends on it for cooking.

This is no the case with LRC where this gas regulated at FCFA 6500.

According to some sources, gas carriers were stranded in LRC's waters and were prevented from delivering gas to the country due to administrative and currency issues, the Colonial Trade Ministry said.

Earlier this year, authorities in charge of the distribution of petroleum products said the shortage was caused by logistics challenges, citing a “delay in the unloading of a Confex Oil vessel”.

Another reason that may explain the situation, according to Business In Cameroun magazine, is that in July, the colonial LRC government admitted fuel subsidies had become unbearable. The same may apply to domestic gas, which is subsidized by the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilization Fund, better known by its French language abbreviation (CSPH).

The publication goes on to observe that at the end of March 2022, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, the colonial La Republique du CameroUn’s Trade Minister, who is also COB of CSPH, estimated the subsidy for a cylinder of gas at CFA 6,777. He projected this subsidy to cost F CFA 70 billion by the end of the year, way more than the overall expenses of CSPH, which are estimated at F CFA 66.09 billion in 2021 and F CFA 52.2 billion in 2020.

The cooking gas shortages revealed a challenge that can also be an opportunity for forward-thinking Southern Cameroonians – cooking gas is not strictly reliable.

This is an opportunity therefore for Southern Cameroonian innovators to think of producing biogas on a larger scale given that the colonial LRC government has failed in assuring cooking gas security.

Biogas is cost-effective as it turns human faeces into cooking gas.

Also, solar energy is another reliable energy for cooking. Already, solar power is being used to light homes and charge electronic appliances in parts of the Northern and Southern regions where the prolonged Anglophone Conflict has meant power cuts that last for up to several months at a time.

Solar cooking is not very popular this side of globe yet but it is also a source of energy that can be harnessed and converted to cooking power and it is clean and sustainable too.