FG To Ban Ownership Of Cooking Gas Cylinders By Consumers
The federal government has announced readiness to take ownership of cooking gas cylinders off the hands of the consumers, in a move geared at ensuring safety for the consumers and also take away the burden of having to purchase the cylinders.
By this model, consumers would only pay for the content of the cylinders.
Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources made the announcement while speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on LPG penetration in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said, already, FG has entered into an agreement with two authentic cylinder manufacturers to deliver 600,000 cylinders to LPG distributors on credit, with a payback period of 18 months.
He averred that the ministry is on the verge of clamping down on illegal roadside LPG dealers and advised all skid operators to “immediately convert their outlets to micro distribution centres (MDCs) before the enforcement begins”.
Kachikwu who was represented by Brenda Ataga, his senior technical assistant said:
“The MDCs will essentially create and introduce into the market what we call the cylinder exchange programme, whereby the cylinders are owned by the distributors.
“There is no need for you to decant for anybody that comes in, and that eliminates illegal risks as well.
“You would fill them at the refill plants that would be tied to you and exchange it with your customers because you know your customers already.
“Your customers pay for only the content, while you own the cylinders and control the management of those cylinders.
“It is for us to be able to, at any point in time, discern and discover cylinders that are bad, cylinders that need recertification and cylinders that need to be removed from circulation.
“We put that onus on distributors going forward, to support the safe and standard method of selling LPG.
“I tell you today that Nigeria is the only country in West Africa that does not practice the re-circulation model.
“Everyone has moved away from this because, again, most of the population cannot afford cylinders. So, you have to remove that cost from them.”
In 2015 when he was the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Kachikwu had said the government had plans to distribute gas cylinders to households at no cost.