2 months ago
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The Federal Government has said that the conversion of vehicles using fuel to gas will reduce transportation cost which will culminate to affordable cost of living by the masses.
At the launch of the initiative and the signing of agreements with various partners in Benin, the Edo State capital on Saturday, the Head of Commercial of Presidential CNG Initiative, Tosin Coke, said the initiative is part of President Bola Tinubu’s efforts to mitigate the sufferings posed by the continuous increase in the price of petrol.
He said the project is targeting one million vehicles across the country and that the conversion would be at no cost to the owner of the vehicle.
He said, “The launch of this initiative will reduce the pressure on petrol and eventually bring the price down, reduce the cost in transportation that would culminate in affordable cost of living for the masses.
“The initiative which was launched in five other state is part President Bola Tinubu’s efforts to mitigate the sufferings posed by the continuous increase in the price of petrol.
“Mr. President has directed that we incentivize all commercial vehicles in the country, we have a target to convert a million vehicles across the nation in partnership with the transport associations; they can come to Pi-CNG partners’ conversion centres and have their vehicles converted at no cost to them including the cost of conversion.
“This is a very laudable policy and initiative directive by the president. The idea is that as the government is making this available it will reduce the cost of petrol, the cost of transportation and they can pass those savings on to the masses.”
Coker said on conceptualization about one year ago, President Tinubu set up a steering committee with three core mandates of incentivizing the project, enabling the financing infrastructure and the regulation of the new scheme.
He said there are partners who have put the financing in place to make it available for corporate, for civil servants, for salary earners, for individuals and companies who want to invest in this initiative/ revolution.
To ensure that the programme is well regulated, Coker said there is the Nigerian Gas Vehicle Monitoring System which he said was the product of collaboration between the Pi-CNG and the Nigerian Automobile Development and Design Council, the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, the Federal Roads Safety Commission and National Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
He added, “Mr, President has seen that we are more of a gas producing nation before being an oil producing nation. We have far more gas reserves than we even know and unfortunately for many decades, we have been flaring, making us the second largest waster of this product behind Russia.”
Coker called for collaboration and support from state governments and other stakeholders like the Edo State government which the Commissioner for Mining and Energy, Enaholo Ojiefoh said Edo for over three years have started its own initiative for the use of alternative to petrol by its citizens.
