The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Gas Users Group wants debt owed by its members to gas franchisers and partners written off.
According to Felix Okojie, the group’s chairman who spoke at the group’s Annual general Meeting in Lagos Tuesday, gas franchisers and partners need to do this to help promote industrialisation in Nigeria.
Said Okojie: “It is important to note that natural gas is mainly used as industrial fuel by our member-companies to power their generators. In order to encourage the industrialisation in Nigeria and to save industries from the misfortune of collapsing, there is need to make the price of natural gas affordable to end-users of the product.”
He argued at the meeting that following federal government’s introduction of gas pricing, the price of gas worldwide has continued to drop. “The current price of gas is a little below $3 per scm which locally comes to N21.26 per scm,” he said.
He argued, “The MAN Gas Users Group was not oblivious nor naïve of the fact that the Federal Government vis-à-vis the franchisers have been making steady profit in gas sales since the coming into effect of the new natural gas pricing scheme which took effect from 2011-2014. We are also aware that we had a carried forward issue of differential of N2 in pricing gas from N35 to N37 which some of us are still being penalized for up till date.
He said if the group’s prayers are heard and considered by the franchisers and government; Nigerian manufacturers would be able to compete with their counterpart elsewhere in the world market. This, according to him, would be seen as the group’s contribution to the development and stability of good business climate in Nigeria.
The franchisers in question are Gaslink Nigeria Limited, Shell Nigeria Gas, and Falcom Nigeria Limited.
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