Nigerian car owners who wish to convert their vehicles from petrol enabled to gas-powered cars will have to pay as much as N250,000 the federal government has declared.
On Tuesday, the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari had said one million cars are to be powered by Autogas free of charge.
But speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, Justice Derefaka, Technical Adviser on Gas Business and Policy Implementation to Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for petroleum made this known on Wednesday, 2nd December.
Derefaka added that the conversion can be completed within seven to eight hours by technicians once it is certified that such a vehicle is fit for conversion.
He said, “The conversion of your vehicle is not something that will take three weeks or seven days; it will take you around seven to eight hours because they (technicians) need to do a diagnosis of your vehicle to see if it is fit for conversion. After that, they will test for roadworthiness and then proceed.”
When asked by journalists who will bear the cost of the conversion, the official disclosed that the car owner will pay for the service which according to him is expected to cost between N200,000 to N250,000 or higher depending on the vehicle.
In his words, “The installer will now put some form of mechanism that each time you buy the gas; a certain amount will be deducted to pay for the conversion kit. Some people will say it is too expensive but I don’t think it is because within a period of five to seven months, you’ve already paid off the cost.