The Federal Government says it will spend a total of N4.2billion on Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited in 2022 despite its defunct state for over six years.
This is contained in the breakdown of the proposed 2022 budget report from the Budget Office of Nigeria.
Details of the budget showed that the sum of N3.9 billion will be used to cover personnel cost, N186.9 million was allocated for capital projects implementation while N75.3 million will be expended on overhead.
Under personnel cost, the Federal Government allocated N3 billion to salaries and wages while N924.6 million was designated for allowance and social contributions.
It also revealed that the government planned to initiate new projects on the inactive establishment.
Many attempts to concession the company and resuscitate Ajaokuta in the past had failed.
In 2019, Abubakar Bwari, minister of state, mines and steel development, said the plant had reached 98 percent completion, and that it would start functioning when the infrastructure required such as rail, dredging of Lokoja and Warri ports are completed.
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The government also signed an agreement with the Russian government on the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Project with funding from the Afreximbank and the Russian Export Centre.
In 2020, the Nigerian government inaugurated a project implementation team to revamp the Ajaokuta Steel Plant.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, who headed the team said they would provide all relevant technical and other inputs necessary to close the Government-to-Government negotiations with the Russian government.
In July this year, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Mr. Olamilekan Adegbite, said that the federal government had made effort to ensure that the Russian company that built the steel industry would come to Nigeria to conduct technical audit of the company.
He said that the Russian team would have been in Nigeria since 2020 for the technical audit but the COVID-19 pandemic distorted the plan.
