The federal government says plans were underway to establish multiple conversion centres for compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles across the country in the next two weeks.
Disclosing this during the handover of CNG buses to the State House, on Friday, the Chairman of the Presidential CNG Initiative Steering Committee, Zacch 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.
The chairman said the goal was to build a sustainable future, leveraging Nigeria’s available cheap and clean energy source, which is gas.
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, implored Nigerians to consider the buses as a symbol of a new beginning.
Also speaking at the ceremony, the Project Director of the Presidential CNG Initiative, Engr Micheal Oluwagbemi, said state governments had already indicated investment interests in the CNG buses, disclosing that the Rivers State Government has already acquired a good number to ease the transportation challenges of the state.
In his own speech, the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, said Nigeria is the eighth largest gas-producing nation in the world and with 70% of its hydrocarbon gas possession will strengthen the nation’s gradual transition from petrol-powered vehicles to gas–powered transit vehicles.
The Chief Of Staff to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, officially flagged off the initiative at the State House, on Friday, in Abuja.
