The Federal Government has said that it has no immediate
plan to ban the importation of gas cylinders into the country as part of its
LPG expansion and implementation plan.
Senior Special Assistant on Domestic Gas in the office of
the Vice-President, Mr Dayo Adesina, disclosed this in an interview with the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.
Adesina said that the government was working on first
building local capacities before contemplating a ban.
He explained that Nigeria still has a lot of cylinder deficits to fill in meeting the LPG expansion plan.
Adesina, who is also the Programme Manager of the National
LPG Expansion and Implementation, said that the plan was to get LPG to the
remotest of villages and discourage the use of firewood and other fuels that
are inimical to the environment.
According to him, for the nation’s over 200 million
population, there were only about two million gas cylinders, which he said, was
poor compared to other countries.
“But Nigeria, with over 200 million people, has less than
two million cylinders. So, if you had 20 cylinder manufacturing plants, it
still won’t be enough.
“We have a new one that opened in 2019, two that are shut
down and three that have sought approval for manufacturing.
You cannot ban what you don’t have.
“Banning importation
is not going to solve the problem. It is going to worsen the problem.”
Adesina said that the government needs to move quickly to
inject cylinders nationwide if it must keep its commitment to reducing
emission.
He, however, stressed that banning importation now would not
be a solution but that Nigeria should rather build local capacity gradually
until the nation can become self-sufficient in cylinder production.
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