The federal government and Russia are bargaining to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in a fresh attempt to revive the moribund Ajaokuta Steel Company.
Construction of Ajaokuta Steel began in 1979 with assistance from the then-Soviet Union and had gulped over $6 billion tax payers money without result.
The facility never started production and various attempts to revive the flagship project by transferring it to private investors failed and the government terminated the concessions.
However, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, during an interactive session with the media in Lagos Tuesday said the MoU would be signed before the end of January.
Adegbite said, the project would create employment for about 10,000 engineers and facilitate industrial transformation agenda of the government, if the arrangement works out.
The Minister said the Russian engineering and construction group Metprom will undertake the necessary work to bring the facility into operation, and the exercise will be financed by the state-owned development institution Russian Export Center and the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank which is expected to commit about $1 billion.
He said Ajaokuta’s output would go some way to realizing Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari’s plans to diversify the economy away from oil and encourage local production.
