The Bureau of Public Safety says it does not expect the ban on the construction of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) stations in the country to be lifted.
It said it rather anticipates the green light for the siting of LPG cylinder recirculation distribution points to be given.
Chief of Party at the Bureau of Public Safety, Nana Yaw Akwada, in an interview with citinews explained that the ban was imposed to help reduce the occurrence of explosions and believed it would be upheld.
“To say I did not expect it to be lifted might be misleading. What we are saying is that the ban may be lifted but not for the construction of filling stations because we know that plans are very advanced into the cylinder recirculation model implementation and so the number of filling stations or filling points are going to reduce significantly,” he said.
Mr Akwada said “The number of distribution points where users or consumers will have to go and purchase their gas or cylinders is going to increase. So originally a station that came under the ban may not be allowed to continue to build a filling station but may be allowed to develop it into a distribution centre”.
A ban on the construction of new LPG outlets was imposed after a gas explosion at Atomic Junction claimed seven people while injuring several others.
A Cylinder Re-circulation Model (CRM) was afterwards proposed as a solution to the explosion.
The move was however heavily kicked by the LPG Marketers Association who raised concerns that it could put them out of business.
The LPG marketers have since been appealing to the government to lift the ban.
