BEVERLY HILLS, March 09, (THEWILL) – Kayode Fayemi, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development has declared that he was working on the concessioning of Ajaokuta Steel Complex because it was so approved in the 2017 budget.
This comes a week after the House of Reps passed a vote of no confidence on the Minister following his non-appearance at a public forum organised by the lawmakers to debate the way forward on the Ajaokuta Steel Complex, Nigeria’s largest steel firm.
THEWILL recalls that the lawmakers were angry that Fayemi and the junior Minister, Abubakar Bwari, did not show up before them at plenary last Thursday despite receiving an invitation personally signed by Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
Irked by their absence, they insisted that it was a clear case of contempt of the parliament for Fayemi and Bwari to say that they would not attend the session due to other engagements when their Ministry is at the centre stage of the Ajaokuta Company.
The lawmakers said the two Ministers would not be granted any form of audience henceforth by the House due to their behaviour and constituted a panel to investigate why the company has been comatose and the role of the two Ministers in the allegations of under hand dealings on plans to concession the steel plant.
However, Fayemi, during a press briefing replied saying he was only implementing an approved law insisting that he had notified the lawmakers he would not be present at the public event.
He revealed that the House of Representatives duly appropriated N2,096,500,000 (Two billion, ninety six million, five hundred thousand naira ) for the concessioning of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex in the 2017 budget, wondering why the same House has now turned around to attack the ministry for implementing the law.
He said government had taken a decision not to spend an additional one dollar on Ajaokuta, since over $8 billion dollar had been sunk into the project by successive administrations since 1982.
Instead, he said, government felt it would be better to give the complex to a credible operator with proven technical capacity and financial wherewithal to run it more profitably.
This he said necessitated the appropriation of over N2 billion for the concessioning in the 2017 appropriation duly passed into law by the same lawmakers now opposed to concessioning.
“We are just implementing what was passed by the National Assembly; that is why we are surprised that we have been subjected to an unwarranted attack over the matter in the last one week,” he said.
Fayemi also said that the March 1, 2018 sectoral debate which himself and Bwari could not attend, and for which they duly notified the lawmakers, was the first and only time they would be absent at such debates, having attended four previously, with focus on Ajaokuta and the steel sector.
The Minister stated that most of the allegations made against him, the Minister of State and the ministry officials were not only unfounded but malicious.
“We take exception to allegations that are not backed up by evidence. Allegations that officials of the ministry have had their hands tied by concessionaire is quite unfounded,” he said.
