LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-The Federal Government has unveiled a new initiative to provide a 50 percent subsidy on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicle conversion kits for members of road transport unions nationwide.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Presidential Initiative on CNG, Michael Oluwagbemi revealed that this initiative aims to convert one million vehicles from petrol to CNG by 2027.
Speaking at the Northern Stakeholders Engagement in Kaduna on Tuesday, Oluwagbemi stated that the government had procured over 20,000 conversion kits to kickstart the program.
He mentioned that the Presidential CNG Initiative had identified eight conversion centers in four states—Kwara, Lagos, Abuja, and Rivers—to pilot the programme.
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Oluwagbemi said, “We are launching what we called the Conversion Incentive Programme with members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers of Nigeria, Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria, and National Association of Road Transport Owners being our immediate focus.
“This is because they are the operators in the road transport sector providing 90 per cent of the transportation in the country to members of the public.
“We will be making the conversion kits available to them at 50 per cent discount and we are also ensuring that the installation cost is free. We are already negotiating with our partners who will initiate that project in the next week.
“We have already identified eight conversion centres in four states, namely Kwara, Lagos, FCT, and Rivers that will pilot the programme. Immediately after that, we will start expanding to other conversion vents that we have identified and they are 120 of them across the country.”
He stated that the subsidized conversion program is part of President Bola Tinubu’s goal of converting one million vehicles to CNG by 2027.
In his keynote address, Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, commended the Federal Government’s initiative.
Represented by the State Commissioner for Works, Ibrahim Hamza, Governor Sani highlighted the importance of transportation to the nation’s economy,
“Transportation is one of the major promoters of our socio-economic activities which deals with the movement of persons, goods and freight from one point to another,” he said.