Government's draft policy to ban the importation of incandescent bulbs and other high energy consumption lamps is to receive parliamentary approval soon. The draft policy has received Cabinet approval and would soon be placed before parliament. It is expected to be passed in the first quarter of next year. Speaking to the GNA on Monday, Mr. Ernest Asante, Director of Communications and Marketing of the Ghana Energy Foundation said: "The introduction of the law is the quickest and surest way of reducing energy consumption, particularly among residential consumers. "Available statistics has shown that lighting alone accounts for about 55 per cent of energy use in Ghana, out of which almost 70 per cent are incandescent bulbs." Mr. Asante said since the commencement of the National Implementation of Candescent Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) Exchange Programme to save about 300 megawatts of electricity, a total of 4.3million CFL out of six million had been installed freely nationwide. He said prior to the commencement of the project, about 35% of people had succumbed to the use of CFL bulbs. This he descried encouraging adding that the populace had welcomed the project and some had taken keen interest in replacing their incandescent bulbs with CFL. Mr Asante said distribution and installation of the bulbs in the three northern regions: Northern, Upper East, Upper West was 100 percent completed. Ashanti, Greater Accra, Volta and Central Regions were about 90 per cent, 97 per cent, 90 per cent and 95 per cent completed respectively. "This is a one time action which is to cause a paradigm shift from the use of incandescent bulbs to the use of CFL," he said, adding that, government would not continue to distribute CFL free of charge after the exercise early next year. Mr. Asante noted that prior to the commencement of the project the Ministry of Energy and the Energy Foundation embarked on a programme to replace all florescent lamps with the Energy Saving Bulbs in the ministries, secondary schools, military, police and all the tertiary institutions in Accra. The programme, he added, is being replicated at the regional level. He noted that the Foundation has currently replaced all CFL type T12 in the public institutions in Accra with the CFL type T5 that conserves about 40% of energy. So far, Mr Asante said about 5,000 have been employed for the exercise some of which came from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP). "We have cautioned the workers not to take money from any body during the distribution of the CFL bulbs because it is a criminal offence", he said. Source: GNA