Success Nwogu 
A former National President, the Iron and Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ISSSAN), Kolawole Mustapha, has said that privatization rather than concession is the best strategy to make the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL) popularly known as Ajaokuta Steel Mill, functional.
He warned that concessioning the ASCL in Ajaokuta Local Government Area of Kogi State valued at over $8 billion would lead to more corruption and be counterproductive. He spoke in an interview with New Telegraph over the weekend in reaction to the recent disclosure by the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Ayodeji Ariyo Gbeleyi, that the Federal Government plannee to privatise or concession at least 91 state-owned enterprises, including the Ajaokuta Steel Company.
Mustapha warned that ASCL must be privatized to investors, who must show serious commitment to making it functional rather than those who will convert it to a warehouse or without plan to make it operational. He said: “Concessioning is like banning and un-baning.
That has been their trend. Has it worked? No. So if they plan to concessioning it, it is the same result that they will get because they are applying the same old method. So the result will still be negative at the end of the day “If it is outright privatization, it can be okay because the way Ajaokuta is, it is like a conduit pipe. It is not yielding anything. People work there and retire without seeing a single metal produced there.
They spend close to N4 billion yearly on salary. For achieving what? And people keep getting promotions at the end of the year. “So they want to privatize it outrightly, I think it might be good enough, at least, to shield the government from all this waste. So, outright privatization would be better.
Concession cannot yield anything, as far as you see how the government handles it.” He opined that policy inconsistency alleged by the government was one of the problems of the steel company. “Inconsistent policies of governments is a challenge. It has not been placed as a priority.
And the fact that they keep on using it as a campaign, knowing fully well that they don’t have any intention. So, fooling the people all the time, definitely nothing will come out of it, if it continues like that. “Itakpe is supposed to feed Ajaokuta for the production. And that is why they constructed a red line that will be conveying the iron ore from that point from Itekpa to Ajaokuta. But me and you know that the original nomenclature has been altered now.
They’ve turned the rail into all these commercial red lines in the Itakpe to Warri and all of that. So, the entire thing has been distorted. That means that the government is not even serious with the system any longer. “The solution is, let them privatise it outrightly. Let the workers be paid accordingly.
There should be a robust practice for them to ease them. Let them, let it not be the other way around, the way they did all other privatization. So, they have to, you know, engage them to make sure they work out get good pay off salary for all of them.
So, some of them will not just be eased out and go and die.” He added: “Government must equally make it functional. It is not just privatization. You have to privatize it to make it work. It’s not that, like all the ones that were privatized, are they working? No, they are not. Dangote bought Oshogbo’s Steel rolling mill and he turned it into a store. That is not privatization.
Whenever they privatize, there must be a proviso where it will be stated that those who want to buy it will make it to work and not just abandon it after privatisation. “You know how many job losses? Where is Katsina Rolling Mill today and other rolling mills.
All are privatized, but no meaningful thing comes out of it. That is not privatization. That is just selling off the government assets outrightly, and then making them more difficult. They become useless. That is not what we are interested in. Privatize it to make it useful and meaningful. Make it productive. That is all we are after. As it is now, privatization is best. Honestly speaking. Concession will not help anybody.
“if Ajaokuta begins to work, it will be a great development for Nigeria in steel production and economic development.” The ASCL valued at over $8 billion was built on a 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) site starting in 1979. It is reported to be the largest steel mill in Nigeria, with coke oven and byproducts plant said to be larger than all the refineries in Nigeria combined.
