Cost of cooking gas: Expand Off-takers licencing – Consumer association urges NLNG

The Cooking Gas Consumers’ Association of Nigeria (CGCAN) a consumer body, has appealed to the relevant authorities to incorporate more qualified Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers in a bid to enable cooking gas consumers have a more cheap and affordable commodity in their various homes.

According to the group, licensing other marketers to function as Off-takers is what is obtainable in other liquefied petroleum gas producing countries across the world.

The group explained that Off-takers are those who are licensed by Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas NLNG to buy gas directly from NLNG and sell to petroleum gas marketers in the country.

The National President of Cooking Gas Consumers Association of Nigeria CGCAN, Dr Hakeem Olajide, in a statement on Monday, said the appeal became necessary following what he described as “the shrouded process of selecting who qualifies as an Offtakers by the NLNG,” a process, he said, the “agency had been accused by some industry players of high-level favoritism in the manner they select Offtakers, who are mostly individuals without the industry requisite qualifications.”

According to him, “license some of these unqualified Offtakers against the interest of qualified plant gas owners, who ought to be licenced and included as Offtakers for the purposes of making cooking gas more available and affordable to Nigerians.”

Olajide said that as a result of the manner the selection of these Off-takers are done and the limited number of those who were selected, there exist a “cabal-controlled market in determining the price of cooking gas in the country, as they now supply the cooking gas to marketers at exorbitant prices.”

Olajide lamented that despite the efforts of the Federal Government through the Ministry of Petroleum to make the product available for common Nigerians, some alleged cabal has made it impossible for such government efforts to yield any positive results.

The association called on FG to address the issues of offtaker selection and create room for more qualified hands to be part of the offtaking, in an effort to enable the availability of the commodity to ordinary Nigerians.

Several attempts made to speak with spokesperson of NLNG Elkanah Chawai proved abortive as he refused to pick his calls.

Messages were also sent to him but no reply.