BY Mary Ugbodaga
The federal government says investors must meet seven criteria to access the Central Bank of Nigeria‘s N250 billion intervention fund for gas value chain businesses.
Brenda Attaga, technical adviser to the minister of state for petroleum resources, announced this in Abuja on Sunday.
The intervention facility was launched in August 2020 to help stimulate investment in the gas value chain.
According to NAN, the requirements are: technical feasibility; overall business plan on skills and experience output of the plan as they must meet government’s national objective of creating skilled and unskilled employment.
Others are the social economic impact of the business plan; and what percentage of internally generated revenue (IGR) it would contribute to the state in which the applicant plans to operate.
The remaining requirements include financial feasibility of the business plan; economic and finance models, as well as the environmental feasibility of the plan.
Attaga said 77 applications had been received for the fund, which includes 50 requests from small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“Our evaluation covers seven fundamental areas which must be evidenced by applicants,” she said.
“This is because people have sent us all kinds of applications that are not in line with the recommended framework of our evaluation.
“The essence is really for us as a ministry to support the propagation of gas and also creation of jobs through access to financing.”
Attaga said start-ups would enjoy some leniency in the financial model such as proof of registration in Nigeria, tax payment, and affiliation to “first class” companies which are already established businesses with good track records within the gas value chain.
She also said preference would be given to indigenous companies as well as gender-based-led companies in the SMEs category.
“In the Liquefied Natural Gas sector, our job creation plan is looking at a minimum of 750,000 jobs; in the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector, we are targeting an additional 250,000 jobs.
“The CNG sector jobs including operations of kits centres where vehicles using petrol can be adapted to using CNG and some new fuelling stations would consequently come up.”
Attaga further said the intervention facility is expected to generate three million jobs, adding that there is no timeline for applications.
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