The government has distributed solar lanterns to 157 households in rural communities in the Dangme East District in the Greater Accra Region that are not connected to the national grid.
The distribution, which took place at Alorkpem, an island
community near Ada, on Thursday was in fulfilment of the government’s promise
to distribute solar lamps to off-grid rural communities to replace kerosene
lanterns.
The initiative, which is expected to be extended to 16 other
communities in the region under phase one of the project, is meant to mitigate
any effect of the removal of petroleum subsidies on the rural poor.
More than 1,000 rural communities are expected to benefit
from the initial 20,000 solar lanterns to be distributed between January 2013
and June 2014 at a cost of GH¢2 million.
The three-phase project will also see the establishment of a
local assembling plant to assemble some 50,000 solar lamps for distribution
through a grant of 50 per cent subsidy across communities that are not likely
to be connected to the national grid.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Minister of Energy and
Petroleum, Mr Kofi Armah Buah, said the rationale for the distribution of the
solar lanterns was to ensure that the people for whom the government was
subsidising fuel benefited from it.
He said it was detected that although the government had
been subsidising kerosene in the past years, the intended beneficiaries were
short-changed by dealers and middlemen.
Mr Buah expressed the hope that the project, which was one
of the government’s social interventions, would accelerate the development of
rural communities, while helping eliminate the impact of smoke-related diseases
on the health of women and children who were at the centre of rural activities
in remote communities nationwide.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ada and Minister of State
at the Presidency, Ms Comfort Doyoe Ghansah, lauded the government for the
project, saying, “The project will bring total relief to the beneficiary
communities.”
The District Chief Executive for Ada, Mr Rex Daniel Wussah,
earlier in his welcoming address, appealed for the acceleration of the process
to extend electricity to the communities under the government’s renewable
energy component project began some three years ago to the remaining islands
along the lower Volta basin.
Story by Della Russel Ocloo
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