The recent budget cuts by the National Treasury are set to affect the initial government plan to distribute 6kg gas cylinders to low-income households.
Kenyans.co.ke established that the government had opted to reduce the programme's target households by 10,000.
As detailed in the revised Programme Based Budget, the government was to distribute the 6kg gas cylinders to 70,000 households in the current financial year.
However, due to the current fiscal realities occasioned by the withdrawal of the Finance Bill, only 60,000 families will benefit from the programme`.
On the other hand, the government will only implement the Clean Cooking Gas (CCG) project in 60 schools.
Initially, the government was to install the cooking gas infrastructure in 74 schools across the country.
Notably, the government had budgeted to undertake the programme at Ksh1,571,522,898. However, after the withdrawal of the Finance Bill, the budget was dropped to Ksh1,313,222,898. This translates to a budget reduction of Ksh258,300,000.
Upon getting into office, President William Ruto announced that the government would undertake various programmes aimed at conserving the environment.
The adoption of clean cooking gas was one of the strategies that was set to be implemented as the government discourages the use of wood and charcoal to conserve the forest.
In the plan, the low-income households were to get free gas cylinders. The beneficiaries would only be required to refill the cylinders.
"We want to ensure that there is a cylinder for everyone who lives below the line so that using LPG should not be an impediment on account of not having a cylinder.
"A lot of those cylinders (in past programmes) were 6 kg and it was not going to people living below the line. We will take the lessons we learnt on mwananchi gas and use them to support the new gas strategy for the people living below the line," former Energy CS Davis Chirchir announced at a past event.
