State steers clean cooking

PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan has directed formation of a national taskforce comprising stakeholders from both the public and private sector, to review existing policies and devise a 10-year roadmap that will steer the country towards clean and sustainable cooking energy.

Speaking during the official launching of the two-day Clean Cooking Conference which started in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday, Ms Samia further instructed that the taskforce should be chaired by the Prime Minister and coordinated by the Ministry of Energy.

Ms Samia expressed concerns that only a handful of Tanzanians use clean cooking energy with statistics showing that five per cent use Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), three per cent use electricity, while two per cent use other sources such as bio-gas.

As such, almost 80 per cent of Tanzanians use biomass for cooking and as a result leading to serious negative impact to the environment and health of people using the harmful energy for their day to day cooking.

“Clean cooking is a cross-cutting issue covering several government ministries on one hand and the private sector and development partners on the other, as such, formation of the taskforce should come up with a roadmap which will ensure clean cooking solutions,” she remarked.

Adding; “The Ministry of Energy should act as a secretariat of the taskforce while the Permanent Secretary in the ministry will chair the taskforce at the level of permanent secretaries.”

Ms Samia also pledged that starting the next financial year the government will allocate funds for clean cooking to facilitate research, investment as well as innovation and rolling out clean cooking among the majority of Tanzania.

President Samia was highly optimistic that establishment of the fund will most likely entice development partners to inject funds to boost the initiative.

“We want at least 80 per cent of Tanzanians to have access to clean cooking energy by 2032 as opposed to charcoal and firewood, which are detrimental to the environment and health of people using them,” Ms Samia directed.

The taskforce will also comprise development partners, the Vice-President Office (Union Affairs and Environment), the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local Government) and the Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Elderly.

Ms Samia informed delegates at the meeting that the taskforce would also advise the government on how the private sector and development partners can chip in provision of clean cooking solutions for the population.

The Head of State further gave a one-year ultimatum to all institutions with more than 300 people including schools and correctional facilities to start using clean cooking and shun charcoal and firewood.

“I am giving you the whole of next year (2023) to work on it so that by the year 2024 all institutions with more than 300 people start using clean cooking energy by the year 2024,” she directed government officials who were present at the conference.

Ms Samia hailed the Ministry of Energy for organizing the clean cooking conference, noting that it has come at the right time when the world has committed itself to a transmission to clean energy to protect the environment against effects of climate change.

President Samia on the other hand blamed unclean cooking energy such as charcoal and firewood for fuelling Gender Based Violence (GBV) since women are subjected to thumping by their husbands for spending long time in bushes looking for firewood.

“Young girls are also made prone to rape since they go out to look for firewood in areas, which are not safe,” she pointed out.

Ms Samia stated that unclean sources of cooking have a negative impact on the health of people, mostly women, environment and social development as a whole.

For his part, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, Engineer Felchesmi Mramba, said the two-day meeting is being attended by over 1,800 delegates and exhibitors across the country.

Eng Mramba described the conference as the beginning of a journey for transition from biomass to clean cooking energy in the country.

The PS was hopeful that participants at the conference will discuss how the government could reform its policies, legislations and regulations towards transition to clean cooking.

Apart from participants in Dar es Salaam, others were attending the meeting virtually from Morogoro, Iringa, Dodoma and Tabora.

Earlier, speaking in a panel discussion moderated by the Minister for Energy, Mr January Makamba, former Executive Director of (UN-HABITAT), Prof Anna Tibaijuka, challenged the government to work on sustaining prices of LPG to enable more people to use clean cooking energy.

The Managing Director of Taifa Gas Tanzania, Mr Hamisi Ramadhani, said consumption of LPG in Tanzania stands at 136,000 tonnes per month against an actual demand of two million tonnes.

He decried felling of trees for charcoal and firewood for degrading the environment, noting however that his company has been dishing out 300m/- each year to support afforestation through the Tanzania Forest Services (TFS).