Cameroon’s cooking gas shortage, reminder of the need for alternative energy

By Hans Ngala

For several weeks this October, there was acute shortage of cooking gas in Cameroon. Few Cameroonians knew the cause of the shortage.
Videos making rounds on social media showed citizens in some towns opening their gas cylinders to discover that the cylinders were only half-full while others turned the cylinders up-side-down and water oozed out of them.
According to some sources, gas carriers were stranded in Cameroonian waters and were prevented from delivering gas to the country due to administrative and currency issues, the Trade Ministry said.
Earlier this year, authorities in charge of the distribution of petroleum products said the shortage was caused by logistics challenges, citing a “delay in the unloading of a Confex Oil vessel”. Another reason that may explain the situation, according to Business In Cameroon magazine, is that in July, the government admitted fuel subsidies had become unbearable. The same may apply to domestic gas, which is subsidized by the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilization Fund, better known by its French language abbreviation (CSPH).
The publication goes on to observe that at the end of March 2022, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Cameroon’s Trade Minister, who is also COB of CSPH, estimated the subsidy for a cylinder of gas at CFA 6,777. He projected this subsidy to cost F CFA 70 billion by the end of the year, way more than the overall expenses of CSPH, which are estimated at F CFA 66.09 billion in 2021 and F CFA 52.2 billion in 2020.
The cooking gas shortages revealed a challenge that can also be an opportunity for forward-thinking Cameroonians – cooking gas is not strictly reliable.
This is an opportunity therefore for Cameroonian innovators to think of producing biogas on a larger scale and the ministries of trade, scientific innovation and the economy; should all be on board on this. It would not only address Cameroon’s energy needs, but will also make the economy more competitive and likely drive cooking gas prices lower. Biogas is cost-effective as it turns human faeces into cooking gas.
Also, solar energy is another reliable energy for cooking. Already, solar power is being used to light homes and charge electronic appliances in parts of the North West and South West regions where the prolonged Anglophone Conflict has meant power cuts that last for up to several months at a time.
Solar cooking is not very popular this side of Cameroon yet but it is also a source of energy that can be harnessed and converted to cooking power and it is clean and sustainable too.