The federal government says consumers of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) also known as cooking gas won’t be allowed to own cylinders anymore.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on LPG penetration in Abuja on Tuesday, Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, said the government will introduce a policy that would require that the ownership of the cylinders rests strictly with the dealers and distributors. He said the policy was part of the strategy to deepen the use ofLPG and address issues of safety.
Represented by Brenda Ataga, his senior technical assistant, Kachikwu said the government has reached an agreement with two original cylinder manufacturers to deliver 600,000 cylinders to LPG distributors on credit, with a payback period of 18 months.
He said the government will soon commence a clampdown exercise on illegal roadside LPG dealers and advised all skid operators to “immediately convert their outlets to micro distribution centres (MDCs) before the enforcement begins”.
Ataga explained that consumers would only pay for the content of cylinders while distributors own the cylinders and control the management of those cylinders. She said this to enable the government 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.
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