The Nigerian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association has called for the intervention of the government in ensuring that the cost of using the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) otherwise known as cooking gas in Nigeria is reduced so as to boost the level of consumption and patronage.
The association said that despite Nigeria being one of the richest countries in terms of crude oil production in the world, the rate of per capital consumption of domestic gas is still very low; stressing that Nigeria still remains the least in terms of per capital consumption in the whole of West Africa.
Making this statement last week in an exclusive interview with Shipping Position Weekly the president of the Nigerian LP Gas Association Alhaji Auwalu Ilu said that less than 2 per cent of Nigerians are using the LPG despite assurances and efforts to bring out the advantages of the product. This according to him is as a result of the high start up cost of using it and maintaining the refill.
Alhaji Ilu said that the association is trying to “address the issue by engaging the Federal Government to see what it can do by way of fiscal policies to see how we can make LPG available, to remove the bottlenecks and to reduce all the tariffs and duties and other forms of taxes so that we can increase consumption to about 2million tons per annum within the next four years”.
He gave an insight into the cost of setting up the usage and also explained that unlike before “supply is no longer an issue, we are now looking at the cost, for you to start using it you will need a cylinder, a hose, regulator and burner. If you add all these together I think for anybody to start using LPG he will need about N30, 000, whereas with N300 you can buy kerosene or if it is firewood you don’t need any investments”.
He also explained that the logistics of getting the product to circulate to the nooks and crannies of the country has also been a major cause of price increase by about 50 per cent.
In his words: “If you can reduce the logistics of making this gas available at each corners of this country, then you are reducing the cost, but until you do that no matter how much you go and campaign for the product if the people can not afford it, there is nothing we can do” he said.
He also reiterated the association’s appeal to government to reduce the duty payable on the cylinders, make the product more berthable at the ports and eliminate the double cost and double handling.
Discussion about this post