Federal Government has taken delivery of 60 locally assembled Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) hybrid buses, as moves by government to crash high transportation fares being charged by transporters by 60 percent
Nigerians particularly workers have been struggling with high cost of transportation, occasioned by the increase in per pump price of petrol caused by removal of fuel subsidy by the present administration in the country since May 29,2023
But government as part of plan to reduce the effect of such removal, opted for the use of Compressed Natural Gas CNG Hybrid Buses as alternative, whose delivery was confirmed in a post through its official X handle on Thursday, saying the buses were delivered by Jet Motor Company under the Presidential CNG Initiative.
According to the statement, the development is in continuation of efforts to provide affordable and comfortable transport solutions for Nigerians.
The vehicles were handed over to a team comprising the Ministry of Finance and representatives of the Presidential Initiative on CNG (Pi-CNG) at the company’s car manufacturing plant in Ajah, Lagos State.
It will be recalled that President Bola Tinubu had during his national broadcast on the #EndBadGovernance protests against hunger and hardship, noted that despite Nigeria’s abundant oil and gas resources, his administration met a country that was dependent only on oil, neglecting its gas resources while subsidising the cost of fuel.
With the delivery of the buses Tinubu's administration demonstrated its investments in CNG to change the narrative.
“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 to power our transportation economy and bring costs down. This will save over N2tn a month, being used to import PMS and AGO and free up our resources for more investment in healthcare and education,” Tinubu stated.
He said his administration would distribute one million kits of extremely low or no cost to commercial vehicles that transport people and goods, and who currently consume 80 per cent of the imported petrol and diesel.
We have started the distribution of conversion kits and setting up of conversion centres across the country in conjunction with the private sector. We believe that this CNG initiative will reduce transportation costs by approximately 60 per cent and help to curb inflation,” Tinubu disclosed.
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