The Ghana LPG Operators Association (GLiPGOA) has called off its nationwide strike, started three days ago in protest of the yet-to-be introduced gas cylinder re-circulation policy by government.
This follows an agreement reached by the association with government that the local industry will own and drive the cylinder re-circulation policy.
Mr Gabriel Kumi, Vice President of the LPG marketers association, said in a media interview, Wednesday evening that, “We’ve called off the strike because we had a meeting with the [Energy] Minister on Tuesday and we came up with some proposals which are quite acceptable.”
He added that, the decision to call off the strike was partly due to the fact that they do not want to overstretch consumers, who have borne the brunt of the industrial action, which has also crippled activities of commercial LPG users, especially taxi drivers.
Read: Customers stranded as LPG Retailers join Nationwide Strike
The LPG operators earlier expressed fear of going out of business, with the introduction of the Cylinder re-circulation programme, which will see the bottling of LPG cylinders at designated locations far from human settlements and sold to consumers at retail points, without users having to take their empty cylinders to vending station for refilling.
“We thought that the way the policy was being pushed through was as if there is no existing industry but we are all aware that the LPG industry has been existing for the past 25 years. We are only trying to apply a new strategy to an existing industry.”
“So it is just fair you try and accommodate the current players who have held the fort all this while and try and address all their grievances,” Mr. Kumi indicated and explained that the government was threatening to register new companies to take over the industry but that had been cancelled.
By: Voltaonelinegh.com
