[Stoves] Business sickness (Teddy Kinyanjui)

Tue Aug 2 21:13:38 CDT 2016

Dear All

“The Ministry of Energy said Ksh642 million ($64.2 million) has been budgeted for the promotion of efficiency in the conversion and utilisation of biomass energy and waste.”

I wonder if they have considered promoting wood as a crop for farmers, to grow along their field borders, or on common land where previously it has bee forest and chopped out. The ‘problem of supply’ seems to be based on the strange idea, in many countries, that trees will not grow in Africa, or that management techniques for forestry plantations are unknown. 

Why is it that when trade in wood and charcoal is legal and controlled and private or communal production is encouraged, it can succeed. I ma not say it does every time, but there are pretty spectacular examples of success. Yet here we read that Uganda, where one has to chop back the garden continuously all year, can’t grow enough wood with which to cook? 

Rwanda, which is much smaller and has a high population, is now producing all charcoal (not just wood) for its cooking needs from private lands or privately owned trees.  

Regards

Crispin

Dear Teddy:

Thank you so much. I must say I am delighted. It may hurt domestic biomass stove producers who have to presumably pay higher prices for some inputs (metal goods) which are subject to higher duties still. I also suspect the urban LPG/charcoal price ratio has worsened; do you have any numbers? 

Several times many years ago I had to opine on taxation of LPG in east Africa (Ethiopia down to Mozambique). In 2006, it was about petroleum products pricing for the whole East Africa economic community (I forget the proper name) - Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda; at the time one or two of these had yet to join. I suggested temporary import and VAT exemption on diesel for power generation (which happened in Uganda for the private self-generators and in Rwanda and Uganda for the utility and rental generators). I also suggested permanent import duty removal for LPG and appliances, first in Ethiopia in 1992 (didn't happen) and Tanzania in 2002 (didn't happen; a German advisor had dismissed the government's idea because LPG produced CO2). By 2005, Uganda had exempted LPG from import duty; Kenya did in 2006 (p. 179, Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) for July 4, 2006).I think Rwanda did in 2007. But import duties on appliances and VAT on appliances and duties remained; glad to see them go. Kenya should sell DALY gains to the Global Dalliance of Cooking Cops, and reduction in non-renewable biomass fraction to the Gold Standard.

I had come across the following stories on Kenya a month ago. WLPGA and IPEA are to be commended for pushing.  Now they should be asked to figure out how to get the bulk (tanker) price of LPG in Nairobi to US$ 700/ton. (Can you get us that price too? I imagine it's more like $1,200+/t.)

Nikhil

PS to Paul Anderson and Dr Anand Karve: LPG tax exemptions and even subsidies are worth the support because people want and use LPG and appliances (including pressure cooker). Is there an "improved" wood stove for cooking that a million people have used half time a year over ten years?

** Don't save trees. Buy your local print newspapers and books. - Nikhil Desai. **

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Nairobi-mulls-tax-waiver-on-cooking-gas-/-/2560/3019138/-/opmkik/-/index.html

Nairobi mulls tax waiver on cooking gas  <http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/image/view/-/2320/data/43/-/1al6uwz/-/ico_plus.png>  

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