No going back on concession of Ajaokuta plant –FG

…Says National Assembly approved N2bn for plant in 2017


The Federal Government, Thursday, said it will no longer spend money to revive Ajaokuta steel plant located in Kogi State, but would concession it to core investors who would run it as a business.

Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, said the government will go ahead with plans to concession the company. His clarification came after Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said the lawmakers will resist the concession move, which he described as a “waste” of the $5.1 billion said to have gone into the plant. But Fayemi, at the Abuja briefing, said there was no going back on the concession. He also described as false, reports that the plant is 98 per cent completed.

Fayemi said his ministry in its 2017 budget, indicated ‘concessioning of Ajaokuta plant’ and the National Assembly approved it at N2 billion. “So, I find it surprising when I hear that Dogara said that concession would no longer be allowed. All that we have done is to commence the process of implementing what they passed in the law,” he said.

“We have agreed that Nigeria will not spend one dollar on the so-called completion. We have spent close to $8 billion since 1979 when this started.”

Fayemi added that his Ministry had commenced the technical audit of the steel plant after which it will roll out plans for its concession. He said since 2015, no fewer than 14 companies have indicated interest in taking over the plant but “we told them we would not undergo the process without a technical audit and transaction advisory service.

“We will only give the steel plant to people who participate in an open bid that is transparent and independently verifiable. And this will only happen after the technical audit that is ongoing.”

On the vote of no confidence recently passed on him by the lawmakers, the Minister said, “we have honoured all their invitations except the sectoral debate and we gave them reasons why we could not come. But since they said they have no confidence in me and my Ministry, I do not believe they will expect us to honour their invitation again in future.”