The Chief Executive Officer of the NPA, Hassan Tampuli, who made this revelation when he appeared before the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, said the new policy will bring about additional cost in the production and supply of the product.

Giving details on how the cylinder re-circulation project will work and its likely effect on prices of LPG products, Mr. Tampuli said: “Currently the policy directive is that, we should have at most six stations. If we have any explosion it should be at those places and not anybody, so the fear and apprehension that people will be suffering will be abated to a very large extent.

“That is what the cylinder re -circulation module is going to achieve. It is going to lead to a little increase in the price, but it is just marginal which is going to take care of the margins for the LPG bottling plant because that is the new addition to the supply chain, and we do this for our safety and we believe that all in all, the policy of LPG cylinder re-circulation should succeed.”

Mr Tampuli also told the committee that his outfit which is undertaking the inspection exercise of some 600 LPG stations with sector agencies, hopes to finish within the next two weeks.

So far, 299 LPG stations have been inspected with some 43 closed down, and a further 35 earmarked for closure.

“We have marked 35 outlets for close down when the level of their stocks come to manageable levels for us to be able to close down. It is more dangerous to leave the stations with the products that they have than allowing them to sell off and close down.”

“Out of the 299 [LPG filling stations], 132 were in full compliance, and out of the number that we had closed down, we have reopened 34. So if you add the 34 to the ones that we have closed down, it should have been 77, but they have been able to meet the safety protocols so we have reopened them. So we have 43 currently closed down. We’ve been doing this work with the multi-stakeholder committee. The new addition is the Ghana Standards Authority, and together we have been doing some review of the process that we need to put in place to arrest such situations,” he added.