The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, on Thursday revealed that the House of Representatives duly appropriated the sum of N2,096,500.00 (Two billion, ninety six million, five hundred thousand naira ) for the concessioning of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex in the 2017 budget.
He wondered why the same House had now turned around to attack the Ministry for implementing the law.
The Minister who addressed journalists in Abuja on Thursday, said both the Ministry and the National Assembly had been on the same page regarding the need to concession the Steel Complex adding that the Ministry had been canvassing the concessioning option in all its meetings and sectoral debates with the law makers.
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 N2billion dollar for the concessioning in the 2017 appropriation duly passed into law by the same law makers 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.
Dr Fayemi said the March 1, 2018 sectoral debate which himself and the Minister of State Hon Abubakar Bawa Bwari, could not attend, and for which they duly notified the law makers, 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. He said while the House members reserved the right to discuss and pass resolutions on national issues, he took serious exception to a member of the House going outside the hallowed chambers to make spurious allegations against public servants.
He revealed also that the technical audit, which would determine the actual cost of fixing Ajaokuta Steel Complex, was still on going, and would be ready in six weeks.