The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, announced that the Nigerian government cannot immediately implement some of the agreements reached with labour unions after the October 2023 fuel subsidy removal protests. One of these agreements is the establishment of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) conversion centres, which would ease the economic pain of subsidy removal.
Although progress has been made in setting up these centres, Onyejeocha pointed out that they won’t be ready before the February 9 strike deadline set by labour unions. She stated that some of the agreements cannot be fulfilled in a short period, including the CNG conversion centres, which is a process that’s ongoing.
Onyejeocha assured Nigerians that the government is committed to implementing the agreements entered with the organised labour, and has already delivered on some of them. She also stated that the government has procured 11,500 CNG vehicles, including buses and tricycles, which would soon be launched by President Tinubu.
The ministry shall liaise with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to ensure that the visitation to the refineries for on-the-spot assessment of the refineries is done without further delay. In addition, provisions have been made for an initial 55,000 CNG conversion kits as part of the commencement of the auto gas conversion programme.
The government is currently developing the state-of-the-art CNG conversion centres nationwide, with the aim to deliver 1 million converted bi-fuel CNG/PMS vehicles. This would help transporters and mass transit operators convert their vehicles that run on PMS to gas, which is forty to fifty percent cheaper than PMS.