…Say Initiative Lacks Proper Planning, Safety Questionable
…Facilities, Spare Parts, Expertise, Processes May Be Compromised
…Standards Organisation Of Nigeria Lacks Capacity
LAGOS – Experts in the Nigerian automobile industry have expressed doubt about the success of the ongoing Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) initiative being vigorously pushed by the Federal Government.
Analysts in the industry said that the initiative lacked adequate planning, while the inadequate auto gas conversion factories and kits, and insufficient expertise may make the entire process more expensive than the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and a failure.
Industry experts also suspected safety and compliance to standards by many conversion professionals, while saying that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), which has a huge role to play in the exercise, had been inactive.
Also investigation indicated that the cost of converting petrol vehicles to CNG ranges between N400, 000 to N800,000 at conversion centres, depending on the vehicle engine.
President Bola Tinubu had approved the establishment of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI) last August to ease the impact of fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians by reducing energy costs.
Tinubu had said that this transformative initiative was to revolutionise the transportation landscape targeting over 11,500 new CNG-enabled vehicles and 55,000 CNG conversion kits for existing PMS-dependent vehicles.
The initiative also aims at encouraging in-country manufacturing, local assembly and expansive job creation in line with the presidential directive.
However, 17 months after the president announced the removal of fuel subsidies and initiated CNG propelled-vehicles, experts said the implementation of the programme was still slow.
Mr. Remi Olaofe, Executive Director, Nigeria Automotive Manufacturing Association (NAMA), told Daily Independent that the association was bothered about the initiative.
According to Olaofe, the Federal Government lacked adequate preparation before unveiling the initiative to the public, stressing that consultation with experts was also insignificant.
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He further pointed out that the programme was short in backup, stressing that at present gas stations were massively inadequate to cater for the demands of motorists that may want to convert their vehicles to CNG.
While Olaofe agreed that conversion to CNG was a good initiative by the government, he queried the haste of the government on the initiative, maintaining that the process was faulty.
He said: “You can’t be going into CNG without having the leadership backup, infrastructure to supply that you want to do. How many branches do we have in the country? There is a place for Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON); they have a role to play because we are talking of cylinders here. How are we sure that the cylinders that are going to be used are to specification? Look at the one that happened in Benin, Edo State, last week, it was a major issue. That could erase the entire filling station and claim lives.
“Are the people doing the conversion the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)? Configuration matters in converting a combustion engine or electric vehicles to gas. The performance and life expectancy of such a vehicle can never be the same. So, why the hurry in going to it?
“It is nice for us to use CNG because Nigeria is blessed with a lot of gas, but the process is faulty. We are hurrying into trouble and when that trouble starts, we will now start looking at the remedial measures. The way we are going about it is not the right way. Enough homework was not carried out. The government may have good intentions because if fuel is going out of reach, there should be an alternative for us to ameliorate the agony and one of such identified is the CNG, which is good.”
The NAMA executive director also questioned the availability of the spare parts, knowledge know-how of automobile mechanics, inadequate gas stations, maintaining that the government should have begun the programme using Lagos and Abuja as pilot areas.
Mr. Patrick Adenusi, Chief Executive Officer, Safety Beyond Borders (SBB), said that the CNG concept was a good alternative to PMS, but expressed concern about quality control.
Like Olaofe, Adenusi doubted the capacity of SON to carry out effective monitoring of products and materials used for conversion, expressing the worry that virtually everything is compromised in the country.
He also expressed reservation about the deep knowledge of the technicians and the rush for pecuniary gains at the expense of safety by the technicians.
The SBB CEO declared that the CNG initiative would not solve the transport problems until all the compounding challenges were resolved.
He said: “As good as the CNG is, I know that the electricians installing it are being trained, but my concerns are the quality of the materials used, the skillfulness of the technicians, do we cut corners at any point? Are we interested in doing a certain number per day and as a result of that, we will not be able to pay adequate attention to following due process?
“CNG will not stop our transport problem, but our road user attitude is where the problem is. How good are the roads? Do we do the right things on the road? Installing CNG is good, but the quality control needs to be up there. For every CNG installed, who verifies to ensure that it is well-fitted.
“Are the importers importing quality materials? Almost everything is compromised in the country. How are we sure that there won’t be compromise in the CNG?”
