The Energy Ministry takes the media on a tour of the Accra Biomass Cookstove Facility.
Officials from the Ministry of Energy led some media personnel on a tour of the Rekoff Company at Joma Ablekuma in the Ga West District of the Greater Accra Region, which has been contracted by the Ministry to manufacture biomass cookstoves.
This tour is part of the Ministry's goal of distributing 500000 efficient biomass cookstoves to over 350000 households in the country between 2019 and 2024, with a focus on low-income households in urban and peri-urban communities.
According to Ing Seth Mahu, Director of the Ministry's Renewable Energy Directorate, the Improved Cookstoves Distribution Project is a US$5 million collaboration between the Ministry of Energy and South Korea's Climate Change Centre (CCC).
Mr. Francis Kugblenu, a Senior Official of Rekoff Co Ltd, led the team around the premises to observe and explain the manufacturing process.
According to him, the company produces approximately 500 cookstoves per day with a workforce of 100 people, the majority of whom are women.
He went on to say that the company's activities had contributed to the creation of several jobs in the catchment area, boosting the local economy.
Mr. Kugblenu explained that sand is hardened into the shape of a stove and is typically obtained from the Volta or Central Regions.
The mould is then set in a cookstove made of metal sheets hammered into shape, similar to a traditional coal pot, with the help of mortar.
Each stove is assigned a serial number in order to identify and track it through the various stages leading up to distribution.
The project has so far completed distribution in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Central Regions, covering ninety-four (94) districts and ninety-seven (977) communities, with a total allocation of three hundred and sixteen thousand, six hundred and seven (316607) stoves.
According to Ing. Mahu, approximately fifty-seven thousand one hundred and seventy (57170) stoves have been distributed in the Western, Northern, Upper East, and Volta Regions.
He expressed the Ministry's satisfaction with the output of the various establishments involved in the project's production process.
The team also visited nearby households where some people, particularly women, had benefited from the improved cookstoves to assess their benefits.
Those interviewed unanimously agreed that these cookstoves had brought them enormous benefits because they no longer had to deal with harmful smoke emissions, and that the cookstoves had enabled them to save a significant amount of money because they now use far less charcoal for the same amount of fuel.
Ing. Mahu also stated that clean cooking is important in ensuring environmental protection, citing cleaner air, improved health in terms of respiratory-related diseases, reduced pressure on the forest, significant firewood and charcoal savings, and substantial savings of more than one million tonnes of CO2 emissions as some of the immense benefits of the improved cookstoves, and pledging that the Ministry will continue to pursue its targets to ensure environmental protection.
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