Olamilekan Adegbite, minister of
mines and steel development, says 11 companies are presently involved in the
concession bid for Ajaokuta steel company.
Adegbite disclosed this at the
presentation of the achievement of his ministry during the 9th edition of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s scorecard series, organised by the ministry of
information and culture in Abuja on Thursday.
The minister said the Buhari
government had been able to resolve all contending legal issues with the steel
company and was in the process of concessioning it to a competent bidder.
He also said the major issue with the company was the concession that was done in 2005 by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to Global Steel, which resulted in litigation and a demand of $7 billion by the company.
“One of the major albatross on
Ajaokuta was the concession that occurred under former President Olusegun
Obasanjo to Messers Global Steel Industries,” he said.
“Things went sour and they took us to court.
The court case went on for about 12 years, but thanks to a patriotic Nigerian
lawyer in the United Kingdom who handled the case very effectively.
“Global steel came with a demand
of $7 billion, but our lawyer was able to puncture holes in their case, and at
the end, they had to settle for $496 million.”
According to Adegbite, the
judgement was favourable to Nigerians.
The minister also said the
current administration had plans to make Ajaokuta Steel Company functional
before the end of 2022, but for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He, however, said that the
government was still committed to ensuring that the company was a concession to
a competent bidder with technical and financial capacities to optimise its
potential.
“We were supposed to make the
plant work in 2022. One of the presidential mandates was to resolve all
contending issues on Ajaokuta,” he added.
“In 2019, at the Russian-Africa summit in
Moscow, President Muhammadu Buhari discussed the idea of resuscitating Ajaokuta
with President Vladimir Putin.
“An agreement was reached for
Russian engineers to come in for a technical audit by March 2020.
“But the emergence of the first
and second waves of COVID-19 stalled the plan.
“We hope that we can give
Ajaokuta to a company, not just on a concession basis, but on equity
participation.”
Adegbite further said out of the
11 companies bidding, adding that three of the companies were Russian.
“We are talking of companies who
intend to bring their own money into Ajaokuta to make sure that it works,” the
minister said.
“The plant is still good if we put in the
right amount of capital, it will start producing in less than two years.
“Government has employed a
transaction adviser who will guide us through the process.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com