By Tordue Salem

ABUJA—THE  House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation has issued a seven-day ultimatum on the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE, Ms. Bola Onagoruwa to, in collaboration with the management of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, repay $120 million into an escrow account or the Federation Acccount.

The committee gave the directive, yesterday, during a meeting with the two parties.

The amount was meant to have been used by the core investors who took over ALSCON in 2005 for the dredging of the Imo River as contained in the share purchase agreement the company struck with the federal government through the BPE.

But the management of ALSCON said they could only pay the amount if the Federal Government fulfilled its side of share purchase agreement by fuelling the gas plants.

Managing Director of ALSCON, Sergey Dgodkin, insisted that there was no way his company was going to be able to pay the $120 million if it was not operational.

He said: “The Federal Government guaranteed continuous supply of gas for production. We will fulfil our part after the smelter gets continued supply of gas and electricity as contained in the share purchase agreement which the government has not fulfilled.”
At a previous public hearing held by the committee sometime ago, ALSCON management had agreed to repay the said amount to the Federal Government with interest.

The Rep. Khadija Abba_Ibrahim headed committee said that if ALSCON management fail to refund the money, its ownership of the company should be rescinded.

Chairman of the Privatisation and Commercialisation sub_committee on ALSCON, Rep. Isa Ashiru said: “BPE should work out how to get the money or re_award the contract. They should pay the money with the accrued interest.”

Many of the privatisation committee members were in agreement with his position.

Deputy Chairman of the committee, Rep. Abbas Braimah said that the ALSCON management has been playing on the intelligence of Nigerians for so long. He recalled that the company at an earlier public hearing had agreed to pay the said amount with interest to the Federal Government, adding that there was no basis for the new position taken by ALSCON.

Provision of steady gas supply

His words: “ALSCON had agreed during our last public hearing to work with BPE to pay the money to the Federal Government. So, what we need to find out now is why the money has not been paid.”

However, Director-General of the BPE noted that the Federal Government had truly promised during the privatisation of the company that it would provide steady gas supply and that it was included in the share purchase agreement and that to a large extent this has held the BPE in check from taking a radical action on the issue.

She said: “They need gas for the dredging and anytime we insist that they dredge, they say there must be steady supply of gas so they can dredge and bring in big ships or the river will silt again.

“We have presented the issue to the Ministry of Finance so it can be resolved. We have asked that they put the money in an escrow account to no avail.”

But the committee nonetheless insisted that it was giving the BPE and ALSCON a week from yesterday to resolve the issue on how and when the amount would be paid to the Federal Government.