Banks, Financial Institutions Urged To Establish Special Funding For CNG Conversion

Banks and other financial institutions have been urged to establish a special funding window to support the country in the CNG conversion process.

The Vice Chancellor of the Kwara State University (KWASU), Shaykh Luqman Jimoh, said this during an interactive session with journalists in Ilọrin on Friday.

The briefing was about the successes achieved in the conversion of five vehicles to CNG-compatible and electric one by the school.

The VC said the project saved the school N854,000 within seven weeks with the use of a 14-seater bus converted to electric vehicle shuttling between Ilọrin and Malate campuses.

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According to him, such financial assistance from banks could be provided as loans and repaid by interested parties in the programme gradually within a specified period.

This, he said, “would make life easier for everyone.”

“The amount saved would have been used in purchasing fuel. We could save at least 50% of the conversion cost within a year by using CNG or electric vehicles. The battery has a minimum lifespan of about 10 years”, he submitted.

Shykh Luqman said the university engineers had converted four vehicles to electric and one to CNG last year, and the institution plans to open a facility for vehicle conversion.

Towards this end, he said the institution had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with two Chinese companies to supply conversion kits (branded with KWASU) to support commercialization fully.

He said universities in Nigeria were underfunded and that KWASU aims to generate more revenue from the vehicle conversion project as an additional source of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

The Vice-Chancellor stated that the university had partnered with the Kwara State Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Technology to convert 22 vehicles from the state transport company, Kwara Express, to CNG.

Also speaking, Abdulazeez Akande, an engineer in the Electrical Engineering Department, said conversion to electric is more costly, at approximately N1.5 million or less, while CNG is more affordable.