By Goodluck Ikiebe
The Federal Government has flagged off the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, PCNGI, with seven conversion centres across Nigeria.
The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, officially flagged off the initiative on Friday at the State House, Abuja.
This was as the Chairman of the Presidential CNG Initiative Steering Committee, Zacch Adedeji, did a symbolic handover of the CNG buses to the State House.
Adedeji, who was represented by the Chief Executive Officer of the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr Farouk Ahmed, announced that the government had waived the Value Added Tax on the CNG buses purchase as well as seeking duty waivers for value-chain.
He said that the goal was to build a sustainable future, leveraging Nigeria’s available cheap and clean energy source, which is gas.
He also disclosed that plans were underway for the government to establish multiple conversion centres across the country in the next two weeks.
Adedeji, who stressed that the delivery of the CNG project demonstrated President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to both environmental sustainability and economic growth in Nigeria, while urging Nigerians to consider the buses as a symbol of a new beginning.
Project Director of the Presidential CNG Initiative, Engr Micheal Oluwagbemi, said state governments had already indicated investment interests in the CNG buses, adding that the Rivers State Government has already acquired a good number to ease the transportation challenges of the state.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, said that Nigeria is the eighth largest gas-producing nation in the world with 70 per cent of its hydrocarbon gas possession, which he said would strengthen the nation’s gradual transition from petrol-powered vehicles to gas–powered transit vehicles.
