The Amalgamated Union of App-based Transporters of Nigeria (AUATON) on Thursday called for the Union’s immediate inclusion in the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (P-CNG).
The AUATON National President, Damola Adeniran, who made the call in a statement, also called for fair and equitable distribution of CNG conversion kits to all transport workers, including AUATON members.
P-CNG is a component of the palliative intervention of the President Bola Tinubu administration.
It is directed at providing succour to the masses occasioned by the transitive hardships of the fuel subsidy removal policy of the Federal Government.
Adeniran said that AUATON members had been unfairly excluded from the programme in spite of the union’s critical contributions to the nation’s economy in the transportation sector.
“AUATON is a registered trade union that represents hundreds of thousands of app-based transport workers across Nigeria.
“We find it unimaginable that the P-CNG can exclude a technology-driven union in such national programme aimed at providing palliative to commercial transporters freely in order to ease high cost of transportation across Nigeria.
“As a result of this exclusion, the union is calling on the P-CNG committee chairman and director of programme to immediately include AUATON in the programme to enable our members benefit nationally, “ he said.
The union leader alleged that attempts to engage the programme director through writing and phone calls to address the situation proved abortive.
He said that the union had been in the forefront of advocating for CNG as an alternative to petrol since May 2023 after the fuel subsidy removal and the resultant hardship on its members.
According to him, the union has installed over 100 cars since October 2023 as a test pilot to understand the positive and negative impact of using CNG as app-based transporter.
“We took a step further and secured facility with a commercial bank for CNG installation for our members nationally, but the announcement of the free CNG installation by Tinubu will be a great relief on our members.
“As a result of this, we are also calling on President Bola Tinubu to save our members from marginalisation and exploitation, “ he said.
