The Bayelsa State Government is set to employ
no fewer than 30,000 workers, particularly
indigenes, in its $3.5bn fertiliser and
petrochemical company, State Development
and Investment Corporation, has said.
The Deputy Managing Director, BDIC, Mr. Tam
Alazigha, in an interview with journalists in
Yenagoa on Wednesday said the $3.5bn Brass
Fertilizer and Petrochemical project to be
sited at Odioma in Brass Local Government
Area is expected to generate a turnover of
$1.5bn.
He, therefore, predicted a prosperous future
for the people of the state as the corporation
intensified action on restructuring the state
economy and expanding economic
opportunities.
Alazigha said the new offices that were
opened in South Africa, United Kingdom and
Atlanta and the United States, would “take
Bayelsa to the world and bring the world to
Bayelsa”.
He said the development would open outposts
in strategic locations in the various key
markets in order to leverage on opportunities
that the markets offered to drive the
restoration of the Bayelsa economy.
Alazigha said, “The $3.5bn Brass Fertilizer and
Petrochemical project at Odioma, which is
expected to generate a turnover of $1.5bn
will employ about 30,000 Bayelsans. This
high-impact catalytic project is expected to
produce 5,000 metric tonnes of Methanol per
day, 2,200 metric tonnes per day of Ammonia
and 7,700 metric tonnes per day of Urea for
domestic and export markets.
“This humongous project will ensure
availability of high-grade fertilizer for farmers
throughout the planting season and meet 25
per cent of the country’s projected annual
domestic demand of 10 million metric tonnes.
The BDIC is to take up a 10 per cent equity
stake in the project.
“The only property owned by the corporation
are those in the U.K, located at St. John’s
Wood registered under BDIC UK Ltd and
forms part of the assets in the balance sheet
of the corporation. The property was bought
at £2.3m but now valued at over £3m with a
monthly rental income of £7,000. For the
office in the United States, the property was
purchased in BIDC’s name in 2013 for $
850,000 and was leased as a property with a
monthly income of $5,000.”
He said other achievements included the
$300m Liquefied Petrochemical Gas project at
Agge, with a projected turnover of $100m and
which would produce butane or cooking gas.
Alazigha also stated that the corporation was
into serious negotiation with Microsoft and
Goggle to facilitate deployment of the much
vaunted white space technology in the state to
make internet available in the rural areas and
hence build businesses.
He said the small and medium scale
businesses were also key areas of interest in
which, adding that much had been done by
BDIC to change the state from being a civil
service state to a modern economy with a lot
of enterprises.
According to him, Bayelsa State with a Gross
State Productof $18.5bn (N2.4 trilion) and
vast resources in oil and gas is a rich state.
He added, however, that such status had yet
to fully benefit the people as it should be.
Alazigha said that it was clear to the state
government on getting into office in 2012
that public funds accruing from the
consolidated revenue were grossly inadequate
to address the huge challenges of
infrastructure deficit.
Based on this, he said, the government
consequently came up with BDIC as a special
purpose vehicle and strategic enabler of
market-driven development which could also
be a fall back option in times of national or
global financial crisis and emergency.
The BDIC, which now has an asset base of
over $1.2bn, he said, leverages private sector
funds and expertise to grow wealth of
Bayelsans and insulate the economy from oil
price volatility.
Alazigha, who came to the job with vast
experience having worked with JP Morgan,
Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas as investment
banker, said the BDIC idea, as a global best
practice, was playing similar roles as in such
investment institutions like the Qatar
Investment Authority, Malaysia Development
Berhad, and the Industrial Development
Corporation of South Africa.[color=#000099]

http://www.punchng.com/news/bayelsa-to-employ-30000-workers-in-fertilizer-petrochemical-firm/

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