The House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill to provide for the withdrawal of  $1 billion (N360bn) from the excess crude account for the completion of the Ajaokuta Steel Mill project.

The House also put a stop to federal government’s plan to sell or concession the company.

LEADERSHIP recalls that the bill for an act to provide for the Ajaokuta Steel Company completion fund was sponsored by Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta and 300 other lawmakers.

The minister of mines and steel development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had recently revealed federal government’s plan to concession the age-old steel project, saying government was no longer ready to ‘waste’ public funds on the project after spending about $10billion without a sheet of steel produced in over 30 years.

The House also passed “a bill for an act to amend the Public Enterprises (privatisation and commercialisation) Act, Cap. p. 38, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to review the list of enterprises to be privatised, and for related matters”.

When finally passed, the bill will be sent to the Senate for concurrence and forwarded to the president. If signed, the executive would be empowered to withdraw $1 billion (360bn) from the excess crude account to complete the steel project.

Also, the amendment of the Privatisation Act removed the steel plant from the list of public assets which the federal government has powers to privatise or concession.

The House has by this amendment stripped the National Council on Privatisation its exclusive power to decide which firms should be on the schedule.

In his explanation, Hon. Abonta said that removing the plant from the privatisation Act became necessary to “protect the steel comapny, a highly valued national asset. It is necessary to delete it because if we let it remain in the market, overzealous persons will sell it either by omission or commission.”

Also at yesterday’s plenary, the House considered and passed the report of the conference committee on a bill for an act to provide for the Governance and Institutional Framework for the Petroleum Industry (PIGB) and for related matters and approve the recommendations therein.”

The House had passed the PIGB, which is one of the four segments of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), in January 2018

When the bill is finally passed, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would be unbundled into the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Incorporated, Nigerian Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Nigerian Petroleum Assets Management Company and National Petroleum Company and Petroleum Equalisation Fund,

Source: https://leadership.ng/2018/03/29/ajaokuta-steel-mill-gets-n360bn-eca-lifeline/

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However, the bill leaves the contribution of states to the funding optional even though Ajaokuta steel is considered a national asset.

The lawmakers further tweaked the bill to provide that government may nonetheless choose to concession the plant in future, if it so desires after the plant must have been completed and operating at 70 per cent of installed production capacity.

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The people are here
The resources are here
There's money
But we are lacking the blessing in this country.

Bunch of thieving rulers vs useless cert carrying youth meet in the perpetual circle of blame game.

Ajaokuta mill is just a drain pipe for our resources, they had better sell it off to private firms cause it seems government has no answer to the problems there

I might have mistaken this for an April Fools story, had it not been about the nest of thieving incompetents called the NASS. Either these idiots have never heard of the sunk cost fallacy, or they know full well that putting any more government money into Ajaokuta is a total waste, but they don't care because they desire the opportunity to emulate Abacha's example, by using this long-obsolete piece of Soviet junk as an excuse for mass looting.

Olalan:
Ajaokuta mill is just a drain pipe for our resources, they had better sell it off to private firms cause it seems government has no answer to the problems there

The reps don't want it to be sold because they'd lose the excuse it provides for stealing $1 billion from the ECA. That's all this is really about, not any bogus "patriotism" or other such puffery.

This is an act of madness and a brazen triumph for corruption.

omohayek:

The reps don't want it to be sold because they'd lose the excuse it provides for stealing $1 billion from the ECA. That's all this is really about, not any bogus "patriotism" or other such puffery.

I disagree with you.What's the presidency doing, if the presidency is proactive the company should be functioning now.Everyone has to share the blame including kogi state government .

This could stall the steel plant. ECA requires governors to give their blessing to it fund. Afterwards it's completed we have hope the state can mange it effectively. Their track record speaks for them.

The most interesting part of all this. If they fail to get it 70 percent they have to flounder around.

if it so desires after the plant must have been completed and operating at 70 per cent of installed production capacity.

Obinwenite:

I disagree with you.What's the presidency doing, if the presidency is proactive the company should be functioning now.Everyone has to share the blame including kogi state government .

If you were paying attention, you'd know that Fayemi already proposed that the damned white elephant be privatized, so that businessmen who know what they are doing get to call the shots. Then again, nothing in your statements suggests you have the first clue about anything related to either finance or steel-making; you just "know" through some unspecified means that this project must be a "good thing" which the state and federal governments are duty bound to support. The crooks in the NASS are counting precisely on ignorance like yours to get their looting scheme passed.

Bump

omohayek:

If you were paying attention, you'd know that Fayemi already proposed that the damned white elephant be privatized, so that businessmen who know what they are doing get to call the shots. Then again, nothing in your statements suggests you have the first clue about anything related to either finance or steel-making; you just "know" through some unspecified means that this project must be a "good thing" which the state and federal governments are duty bound to support. The crooks in the NASS are counting precisely on ignorance like yours to get their looting scheme passed.

Guy you don't know what you are talking about

Ajaokuta has been privitized a couple of times and it was made worse than it was.

The indians are not genuinely competent to complete and run that important national asset well...they are just there to strip and rip the place without putting in a significant amount of investment.

Let govt provide the money for the original builders of ajaokuta to complete the steel plant before private hands are called in to manage it

Olalan:
Ajaokuta mill is just a drain pipe for our resources, they had better sell it off to private firms cause it seems government has no answer to the problems there

How old are you?
Where are you from?

I want to restrain myself as I type this. I know Nigerian youths are very annoying so I will be restrained and very elementary.

Nigeria = plenty of youths (demographically speaking)
Youths = need a future, jobs, get married to whom they love,
have kids
Ajaokuta = Steel plant. They call it a basic industry.

Ajaokuta Steel Plant = liquid Steel + 30 very useful products and
gases

Ajaokuta can produce raw materials for 30 other industries.

Ajaokuta can produce enough Steel to 100x the current Nigerian rail capacity.

Trump is protecting US Steel and Aluminium. I don't like Trump but he struggles not to be a fool. Here he may have succeeded.

Why should Nigeria be foolish and not complete Ajaokuta

When a young man comes on Nairaland to vomit timidly what global Steel makers and their agents want to do to make us dependent, it means generational curses are at work. You showing off stupidly.

The stupidest idea running on the Internet is suggesting that Nigeria cannot run a steel plant.

They are not insulting Buhari they are insulting young Nigerian Engineers.

Ethiopia and Egypt and S. Africa are running Steel plants.

It is even sad that some of our brothers from the S.East have joined the crowd...you know showing off over nothing.

If Ajaokuta was sited in Enugu , won't it have been running since 1979?.

Please I like you but please think deep about issues before jumping in. Don't be mentally timid, running with other people's ideas.

Ajaokuta is a challenge. Nigeria will run it and develop other basic industries, defence industries, foundries and more sophisticated stuff from it. We shall become an exporter .

It can run, WITH or WITHOUT government. Ethiopian and Egyptian plants are not privately owned.

billante:


Guy you don't know what you are talking about

Ajaokuta has been privitized a couple of times and it was made worse than it was.

The indians are not genuinely competent to complete and run that important national asset well...they are just there to strip and rip the place without putting in a significant amount of investment.

Let govt provide the money for the original builders of ajaokuta to complete the steel plant before private hands are called in to manage it

The plant is 95% completed. I believe your suggestion is what the government is going to do. We can complete, get competent management and privatize on the stock exchange. If we sell to an international Steel company, they will strip it and sell.

Steel is now a strategic industry to be nurtured like in the 70s . No more Global players because Trump has decided to protect US Steel. US Steel and Aluminium are now more expensive in US itself than the imported high tariffed Steel from China because US Steel makers want to make enough money in the short term to replace all their equipment.

We needed to do same to our own. We need the plant running for railways, defence industry, agro equipment industry and auto industry. We should not listen to any commerciality bullshit OR stupid talk about government inefficiency .
Govt inefficiency is a choice you make.

To start with, the ECA is not really a legal account that lawmakers can start legislating on. Again, the funds in the ECA belongs to the federation and not the Federal government. Federal government by law can only spend from the consolidated revenue fund and not straight from an account that is at best illegal. What the national assembly is trying to do with this bill is nothing but sheer illegality.

The ECA is a special arrangement to save money for the rainy day. The national assembly should stop over reaching itself by trying to legislate away the savings of the country.

billante:


Guy you don't know what you are talking about

Ajaokuta has been privitized a couple of times and it was made worse than it was.

Oh really? Tell us exactly when it was privatised, and who bought it for how much. Tell us how the government then reacquired it after selling it off. You don't have the first clue what you're talking about.

The indians are not genuinely competent to complete and run that important national asset well...they are just there to strip and rip the place without putting in a significant amount of investment.

Again, more pontificating based on nothing more than prejudice masquerading as knowledge. If Indians don't have the competence, how did ArcelorMittal become the world's biggest steel company, and its biggest shareholder - Lakshmi Mittal - the third richest man in the world?

Let govt provide the money for the original builders of ajaokuta to complete the steel plant before private hands are called in to manage it

The idiocy and ignorance packed into this single statement is simply unbelievable! What exactly do you think Nigerian governments have been doing with Ajaokuta since the 1970s other than pouring more money into a black hole? And do you realise that "the original builders" that you mention no longer even exist, as the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991?

You're ever so typical of totally ignorant Nigerians who refuse to let their ignorance stop them from wanting to pour yet more good money after bad, even with more than 40 years of failure staring them in the face.

NAIJA

Ok

Owo election ti Jade

Heading towards misappropriation!

That money should have been invested in improving our own ingenious steel making process and in no time we'll be building steel factories for other countries.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDVF6Rna_40 of our blacksmiths industry in 1500 BC

Waste!!!

Final loot Kai. These people don final empty our account.

Please let's begin a riot biko

seunmsg:
To start with, the ECA is not really a legal account that lawmakers can start legislating on. Again, the funds in the ECA belongs to the federation and not the Federal government. Federal government by law can only spend from the consolidated revenue fund and not straight from an account that is at best illegal. What the national assembly is trying to do with this bill is nothing but sheer illegality.

The ECA is a special arrangement to save money for the raining day. The national assembly should stop overachieving itself by trying to legislate away the savings of the country.

I beg your pardon, the ECA is not a legal account but the National Assembly can definitely legislate on it.
The ECA is not savings.
It is a container for funds accruing above crude oil sales receipt.
It is definitely not for the rainy day. Define rainy day.
Rainy day funds go to sovereign wealth funds SWFs, strategic saving accounts earning interest and portions of the external reserves can be savings.

We need to save the steel industry. The expected GAINS are earth shaking. It can do to the economy even more than Dangote 's refinery.

House of thieves, they'd lit a country on fire for kickbacks. Fayemi is opposed to this move but he can go to hell all they care. Bunch of idiots wasting our resources

They've already received part payment of their own share.

As soon as the money is approve, the board are going to share it
That's what they've been doing since the time of Babaginda who
sometime ago approved same thing. They shared it.

These politician are the most evil sets Nigeria have ever had.

Since that ajaokuta dey never revive am

THIS IS MORE OF A LOOTING MILL THAN A STEEL MILL!

The days when foreign companies build steel plants of these magnitude for other countries are gone. In other words, no Indian or Chinese company is coming to Nigeria to build Ajaokuta for us. Any money invested on that plant is a total waste.

ANOTHER SHARE THE MONEY AGAIN, BEFORE THEY PASSED THE BILL THEY ALREADY KNEW THEIR OWN SHARE OF THE MONEY, WHY NOT TELL THE FOREIGN PARTNER TO SOURCE FOR MONEY AND RUN THE COMPLETION AFTER WHICH REDEEM THEIR MONEY BACK FROM THE PROFIT MADE WHILE FULLY IN OPERATION