Under the Project Mwananchi, more than four million households were to be supplied with a six-kilo cooking gas cylinders and burners for a discounted price of Sh2,000 in three years, with refills costing Sh840.
This is about 150 percent lower than the market cost of similar cylinder with cooking accessories which goes for about Sh5,000.
The project was, however, suspended in June 2018, a month after the Treasury had allocated Sh2 billion towards purchase of the cylinders, dubbed Gas Yetu, in the year starting July 2018, following the initial Sh1 billion budget a year earlier.
Low-income households have borne the brunt of a botched cheaper cooking gas plan, with prices of kerosene and charcoal rising rapidly in the past three years.
Prices of the two commodities have doubled since 2016, an analysis of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data shows, hitting hardest the poorer homes that largely rely on them for cooking and lighting.
Paraffin prices have surged 116.93 percent to average Sh102.26 per litre in the January-June period of the year compared with a similar period in 2016 when the cost averaged Sh47.14.
A four-kilogramme tin of charcoal retailed for an average of Sh143.02 in the review period, an 81.84 percent jump compared with three years ago.
The rise in kerosene prices, used to power cooking stoves and lanterns by poor homes as well as pockets of small-scale fishermen, is largely linked to last September’s imposition of Sh18 levy to deter use of the fuel to adulterate diesel.
Charcoal prices, on the other hand, have been climbing sharply on the back of anti-logging ban in public forests from February 2018.
This comes amid June 2018 suspension of implementation of State-funded cooking gas subsidy plan aimed at cutting reliance on kerosene, charcoal and firewood which are not environment-friendly.
They are, however, the main fuel for most rural and urban poor households.
Under the Project Mwananchi, more than four million households were to be supplied with a six-kilo cooking gas cylinders and burners for a discounted price of Sh2,000 in three years, with refills costing Sh840.
This is about 150 percent lower than the market cost of similar cylinder with cooking accessories which goes for about Sh5,000.
The project was, however, suspended in June 2018, a month after the Treasury had allocated Sh2 billion towards purchase of the cylinders, dubbed Gas Yetu, in the year starting July 2018, following the initial Sh1 billion budget a year earlier.
State-owned National Oil Corporation suspended the project, launched October 2016 with a pilot in Machakos and Kajiado counties, citing distribution challenges with state audit office founding that some Sh870 million had been spent with no value to taxpayers.
The rise in charcoal prices also affects some of the higher-income homes and eateries which rely on the fuel source to cook some traditional and indigenous food such as roasted beef, popularly known as nyama choma.
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