The Compress Natural Gas (CNG) program, according to President Bola Tinubu, will save the nation approximately N2 trillion in expenses associated with importing Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) and Premium Motor Spirits (PMS).
In response to protests that have broken out across the nation about the rising cost of living and hardship, the President made this statement to Nigerians in a nationwide broadcast message.
President Tinubu urged Nigerians to put an end to their ongoing demonstrations and have constructive conversations, pointing out that the administration has taken steps to lessen the burden of living expenses for the people of Nigeria.
He said that the country’s inflation would decline as a result of the CNG project, which was introduced last year and will save transport costs by 60%.
He added that business transporters, who move people and commodities and account for around 80% of the nation’s PMS use, will receive conversion kits from the administration at a very cheap cost.
He declared, “Fellow Nigerians, we are a country blessed with both oil and gas resources, but we met a country that had been dependent solely on oil-based petrol, neglecting its gas resources to power the economy. We were also using our hard-earned foreign exchange to pay for and subsidise its use.”
“To address this, we immediately launched our Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (CNG) to power our transportation economy and bring costs down. This will save over two trillion Naira a month, being used to import PMS and AGO and free up our resources for more investment in healthcare and education.”
“To this end, we will be distributing a million kits of extremely low or no cost to commercial vehicles that transport people and goods and who currently consume 80% of the imported PMS and AGO.”
What to note
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the Presidential CNG Initiative in October 2023 in response to the gasoline subsidy being removed on May 29, 2023, in an effort to deliver more reasonably priced, secure, and ecologically friendly energy. The primary goal of this project is to deliver compressed natural gas for mass transit.
The Federal Government purchased 5,500 CNG vehicles (buses and tricycles), 100 electric buses, and over 20,000 CNG conversion kits using N100 billion from the N500 billion palliative budget in order to lessen the impact of rising fuel prices.
Nigeria imported around N2.6 trillion worth of petrol in the first quarter of 2024, a 46% increase over the same period the previous year. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) support this.
