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Nigeria requires USD 1.21 billion to revive Ajaokuta Steel Complex-The 18th China(Guangzhou ) Int’l Casting product Exhibition
5/24/2017 casting expo-Die-casting expo-foundry expo |
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Thirty-eight years after it was established to launch the country into an industrial era, the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited has failed to properly take off, despite billions of dollar committed to it. Investigation has shown that the country requires a total of USD 1.21 billion to put Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, Nigeria’s integrated steel complex, into production. This amount is USD 813 million higher than USD 400 million needed to complete the steel complex 17 years ago when an audit of the complex was conducted by the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The new funds injection includes USD 513 million required to complete the construction of the steel plant and USD 700 million for external infrastructure.
The Ajaokuta project has so far consumed about USD 4.66 billion. This includes the cost of the plant; the cost of an extensive estate known as the Steel Township; and that of the rail bridge across the River Niger.
The Sole Administrator, Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, Mr. Isah Onobere, confirmed these figures.
To several experts, the Ajaokuta Steel Complex and its raw materials producing counterpart, the National Iron Ore Mining Company, Itakpe, best exemplify the nation’s wasteful culture and lack of vision and interest. Both companies are located in Kogi State.
While several countries that produce steel products do not have the core raw material, iron ore, Nigeria is blessed with iron ore deposits, not only in Kogi, but also in some other parts of the country.
With the abundance of iron ore deposits, Nigeria was supposed to be a cheap producer of steel products at the conception of both Itakpe and Ajaokuta.
However, the vision has since gone awry with successive governments neglecting or leaving the ASCL and NIOMCO worse off.
Within four years that the construction of Ajaokuta Steel Complex began, the plant had reached 84 per cent completion rate as the government of President Shehu Shagari counted it as the bedrock of Nigeria’s industrialisation.
Some workers at the complex, who had joined the company at inception, told our correspondent that Shagari used to visit the complex every month. But when, the military struck, the vision was kept in abeyance.
-The 18th China(Guangzhou ) Int’l Casting
product Exhibition
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