The Minority Whip of the Senate, who is also a member of ad-hoc committee of the Senate on Ajaokuta Steel Company, Senator Osita Ngwu (PDP, Enugu West), has cautioned colleagues not to pursue the issue around the questionable N4.2 Billion appropriated in the 2024 budget as personnel costs for an unverifiable number of workers at the Steel Company.
Speaking after the Senator, representing Kogi Central and Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi Central), opened a can of worms on the issue, Osita Ngwu simply blocked the sole administrator of the Steel Company from responding to Natasha’s poser.
Senator Ngwu warned the probing Natasha: “Please don’t let us indict ourselves because the said appropriation was approved by the National Assembly.”
Allegation of unverifiability of workers at the non-functional steel company arose during an investigative hearing on alleged incidences of corruption and inefficiency in Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and National Iron Ore Mining Company from 2002 to date, by the committee.
Senator Natasha had taken the sole administrator of the company, Summaila Abdul Akaba, to task on the number of workers that are supposed to be collecting salaries from N4.2 billion appropriated for personnel cost in the 2024 budget.
Natasha said: “The sole administrator of Ajaokuta Steel Company, I have a good question for you. Being an indigene from the area, very worried about the state of the company and passionate about its revival, the sum of N4.2 billion was appropriated for personnel cost in 2024. But from several visitations I have made to the complex, hardly were 10 people sighted to be around or doing anything.
“So, who are the workers collecting monthly salaries from the appropriated N4.2 billion?
“Statistically, if N300,000 is paid monthly to 14, 000 people per month for a year, you get N4.2 billion or N500,000 to 8,400 workers per month in a year.
“Where are the 14, 000 or 8,400 workers in Ajaokuta, the appropriated N4.2 billion is being spent on?”
Speaking, Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire (APC, Ondo Central), said that presentations and submissions made by various stakeholders would be thoroughly looked into by the committee for a solution report on Ajaokuta Steel Company to the Senate.
Key stakeholders at the investigative hearing include the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, a director from the Central Bank of Nigeria, a director from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Nigerian Society of Engineers and Steel and Engineering Union Workers of Nigeria, among others.
