The Federal Government, on Thursday, declared that the conversion of petrol and diesel-powered commercial vehicles to run on Compressed Natural Gas is going to be free of charge.

It declared this in Abuja after signing agreements with various companies involved in the conversion of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles to operate on CNG.

It said commercial transporters under their different unions including the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, National Union of Road Transport Workers, and Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, among others, would benefit from this.

The Programme Director/Chief Executive, Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, Michael Oluwagbemi, disclosed this to journalists after the government agency signed agreements with various companies in Abuja.

He said, Today weve just signed with five partners with us here in the Federal Capital Territory that are participating in the Conversion Incentive Programme.

The programme is tackling the barrier to Nigerian commercial transport operators to convert from PMS (petrol) to gas. Most of them have said that the cost of conversion is expensive, and so what we are doing here today is basically to respond to that concern.

What is the government doing about it? First and foremost, for commercial operators that are unionised, Im talking about the members of RTEAN, NARTO, and NURTW, through their unions they can benefit 100 per cent discount. That is, they will get the kits for free and installation will also be done for them for free.

And this is going to be done through these certified conversion workshops that we are beginning to identify. Weve identified about 123 of them; five of them are here with us today that we are going to be working with here in Abuja. As we expand across the country we will be activating more of them, Oluwagbemi stated.

He said the second group of commercial transporters was the ride-share operators.

So if you are a vehicle rider that is operating under Uber, Bolt, Lag-Ride, Move, etc, you will be able to also benefit from this programme. Today we have Bolt here with us that is signing and we hope to add the others very soon. Lag-Ride has already signed up and we are going to send the agreement next week.

They will be able to benefit from a 50 per cent write-off on the equipment and then they will get installation for free. So that means the government will pay for these conversion workshops to install the equipment you will get at 50 per cent off.

And because of the arrangement we have with these companies, youll be able to also get to pay little by little. So youre not paying any money upfront on day one, Oluwagbemi stated.

The P-CNGI director said through the implementation of this programme, Nigerians would start paying less for transportation.

He said, We have over 20,000 kits that are immediately going to be available in the next three months through this programme. We will be distributing them across the states that have some CNG capacity or the other. The states are about 25 in number.

This will ensure that the citizens within these states, the unions and ride-share operators would-be participants of the 20,000 potential kits that will be made available under this programme. The 20,000 kits were made available under the palliative initiative that was budgeted for last year.

But the National Assembly has made additional funding available this year, and we will be rolling out additional kits once the necessary acquisition of materials is made available to us by the third or fourth quarter of this year, he added.

On the agreement that was signed in Abuja, he said, It (agreement) is saying that in return for giving you these kits, you will also pass on the savings to ordinary Nigerians. So we will begin to have some impact in terms of transportation.

Asked to state how the government would monitor the conversion centres, Oluwagbemisaid, We have a very strong monitoring mechanism around conversion as well as the enforcement of reduced pricing for Nigerians. The Nigerian gas vehicle monitoring system ensures that they are properly converted and then we can track them.

Secondly, within the framework of the agreement we are signing with them, weve agreed on some significant pass-on of those savings that they will be realising. As they realise the savings, they are under obligation to report to us and make sure that the savings are passed on to ordinary Nigerians so that we do not defeat the purpose of the palliative. (The PUNCH)