THE Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA) now banks on awareness education on revised regulations of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for more growth of this energy sub-sector in the country.
EWURA has embarked on awareness creation among dealers of LPG to make them have common understanding of the regulations, reviewed in 2018.
This comes at a time when the sub-sector has already shown rapid growth in the past few years as members of the public have increasingly turned to using environment friendly sources of energy. The data indicate that importation of the LPG increased by seven times over the past eight years.
The country imported 140,000 metric tons of the LPG in 2018, up from only 20,000 metric tons in 2010.
Ewura’s Eastern Zone Manager Nyirabu Musira said the authority was upbeat that after the dealers have understood what the regulations actually want the players to do the subsector will further grow.
“Regulations are there, now we want stakeholders to understand so that when we do enforcement, we are assured that there is common understanding of the laws,” Eng Musira stated in Dar es Salaam at a seminar that involved over 40 dealers in the LPG sub-sector.
He argued that due to speedy growth of the sub-sector, the authority was forced to embark on an awareness campaign to avoid any setbacks in the future. The renewed regulations are expected to enable the authority come up with a system to regulate prices of the product in the local market.
“Due to these regulations, we will be able to start regulating prices of gas in the market, currently the LPG prices are controlled by the market itself,” he said.
Regulating prices would start after the authority would have introduced the bulk procurement of the LPG as it is so applied in fuel procurement.
“Once we start the bulk procurement we would be able to determine costs spent on purchasing the LPG, so we would be able to decide prices in the local market,” he explained.
Among other things, the regulations require the super dealers of the LPG to have business contracts with small dealers or distributors.
The regulations also enforce possession of licenses to all dealers and distributors of the LPG, who are supposed to adhere to conditions contained in the licenses.
Eng Raphael Nyamamu, an official with the Ewura, took the participants through the regulations.
In his paper, Eng Nyamamu said LPG business should be conducted by following rules and regulations to avoid effects.
He said the authority would continue cooperating with LPG companies to identify traders who engage in illegal sale of the LPG.
