Kunle Kalejaye
23 November 2012, Sweetcrude, Lagos – OANDO Plc has revealed that, as part of its corporate social responsibility, the Oando OGAS 3kg cooking stove initiative has the potential to create a minimum 36,000 jobs in Nigeria.
The cooking stove which is a three-in-one bundle that comes with burner, cylinder and gas was introduced by Oando Marketing Plc to ease the challenges associated with using unwholesome fuels such as firewood, charcoal and others for cooking.
They also plan to switch five million homes from the use of cooking fuels to liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, a clean, safe, convenient, environmentally healthy, and affordable cooking fuel through its OGAS 3kg initiative to address the perennial problem associated with the use of cooking with unwholesome fuels.
This disclosure was made during the Oando/Access Africa (Agriculture, Climate Change and Entrepreneurship Support Services) summit held in Abuja recently with the theme “LPG as a climate control tool in Africa: The Sustainability Agenda.”
During his presentation at the summit, CEO, Onado Marketing, Mr. Abayomi Awobokun, explained that the company’s objectives is to successfully switch up five million homes to cooking gas from kerosene in the next three to five years.
“Our goal is to successfully switch up to five million households to cooking gas from Kerosene and other dirty fuels over the next 3-5 years. We believe this effort will not only boost the lives of millions of Nigerians, but will also create up to 36,000 jobs across the value chain,” he said.
He noted that the 36,000 jobs will be in the retail, distribution and Manpower development sectors as the LPG value chain grows and develops.
Speaking on the relevance of the summit and the switch initiative, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Abdulwahed Omar, said the initiative is something that is long overdue for Nigerians to have.
“It is long overdue for Nigerians to have something like this; so I want to thank and congratulate Access Nigeria and Oando Marketing PLC for the partnership to ensure that Nigerians will be able to get something in terms of facilitating cooking that is going to be very simple, and above all, safe.
“We in the Labour movement, we wholeheartedly welcome this idea. We are ready to partner with ACCESS, Oando and every other stakeholder to ensure the success of this project”
Justice Abubakar Umar who spoke at the summit expressed satisfaction over the level of commitment and interest displayed by the stakeholders who were present at the summit.
The OGAS cooking stove was the outcome of a year-long research into cooking habits of low income households to match their aspiration of a desired cooking device if certain conditions were right.
The product which is targeted at the bottom of the pyramid customers is priced for its target audience and they can refill their gas using the Pay-As-U-Gas (PAUG) facility at any Oando station.
Oando recently signed an agreement with Lift Above Poverty Organisation to provide on-lending debt capital through its micro-finance banks to low-income households.
To further enhance accessibility, Oando Marketing initiated the three-wheeler supply scheme (Keke Napep) to supply O-GAS to customers who make requests to either refill or exchange cylinders via the O-gas care-lines.
To address the issue of affordability, the company introduced the Pay-as-u-gas metering system to enable customers refill with any amount they can afford per time.
