By Uche Amunike
Owing to the plans by the Federal Government to introduce 11,500 gas powered buses nationwide as from next week, in their bid to ease the current transportation challenges faced by Nigerians, the Presidency has assured Nigerians that this initiative will reduce the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) price to N230 per Kg.
Speaking, During a stakeholders meeting held at the Bank of Industry headquarters, Sunday, in Abuja. Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs, Toyin Subaru, made this disclosure.
He stated that the initiative would help Nigerians to save two-thirds of what they spend on transportation costs, while at the same time, help to promote the use of CNG as an alternative to petrol.
The meeting was aimed at formalizing a collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology, FEMADEC Group, among others, to facilitate sustainable transportation in Nigeria.
Hear him: ‘Now, with this CNG plan, we don’t even have to import what we need to operate our vehicles. It is called CNG and we have the gas here in Nigeria. So, the idea is just to take the gas to distribute it across Nigeria via different truck stations.’
‘Most gas is not CNG enabled yet and what we are doing is to help them convert their cars so you can use petrol and CNG at the same time.’
He further stated that the government will develop an application that would help Nigerians locate where a CNG station is situated. According to him, CNG prices for cars would be N230 naira per KG, as against the cost of petrol, which is N680 per litre. This, he said, would help every Nigerian to save about two-third of their transportation costs. He also added that the federal government intends to have one million CNG vehicles on Nigerian roads by 2027.
Speaking also during the meeting, the Program Director of the Presidential CNG Initiative, Michael Oluwagbemi explained that the government has the intention of establishing 1000 conversion workshops across the country. He also stated that the initiative will assist in providing over 50,000 jobs to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.
His words: ‘Our goal in the presidential CNG initiative, as stated by the President in his October 1st speech is to make 55,000 conversion kits immediately available to the Nigerian public so that we can begin to jumpstart the CNG revolution.’
‘The palliative programme as described by the president will last until March 31, 2024. So, technically speaking, we are expected to roll out 55,000 within that time frame.’
‘Given of course naturally, we are quite a bit constrained when it comes to the number of workshops and there’s a reason why we’re here today. We only have seven functional workshops in the country. In our estimate, we need about 1000 to be able to achieve our goal.’
He averred that the ongoing partnership with the relevant stakeholders, as well as the 55,000 CNG conversion kits for the existing PMS dependent vehicles would be launched within the time frame given by the president.
He also assured that there will be more partners and more investors in the sub-sector, as their goal was to have a million vehicles by the year 2027. Which will make Nigeria save about $20 billion in 10 years and also allow the management of transport inflation.
