Socio-economic determinants of household gas demand: the case of Kigamboni municipality.

The core objective of this study was to find out socio-economic determinants of household gas demand in Kigamboni Municipality. The study applied a cross-sectional study design. Primary data was collected from Kigamboni Municipality in Dar es Salaam city through administered structured questionnaires. A total of 355 respondents were surveyed from four (4) wards. The collected data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics and logit regression model. The results indicate that in Kigamboni Municipality, households use different sources of fuels for household cooking but the main ones are charcoal (78.7 per cent) and Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (65.2 per cent). The findings reveal that households in Kigamboni Municipality use a combination of fuels for cooking. This is consistent with the Fuel Stacking Theory which asserts that households may not switch completely from one source of energy to another as income increases, but rather use both modern and traditional energy sources and stack fuels for specific use. The study results provide evidence that reliability of LPG supply, increase in price of charcoal, type of food commonly cooked and occupation of family head are significant factors in influencing household gas demand in Kigamboni Municipality. However, marital status was found to be statistically insignificant and negatively related to the household gas demand. It is recommended to policy makers to formulate policies which would improve households’ welfare through job creation and conducive business environment to boost their sources of income. There should also be improvement of LPG distribution networks to guarantee accessibility, availability and affordability. Another area of concern for improvement relates to the price of LPG. The government is advised to remove all charges including Customs Processing Fee (CPF) and Fuel Development Levy (FDL) which are currently imposed on imported LPG in order to cut down prices. Such a move will motivate more households to start using or prefer LPG to charcoal.