At Budget Defence, Ajaokuta Administrator Justifies Spending on Security, Others

Juliet Akoje in Abuja

The administrator of the Ajaokuta Steel Company, Sumaila Abdul- Akaba, yesterday, said the amount spent on personnel for security and maintenance of equipment was justifiable.

Abdul-Akaba made this known while presenting the performance of 2022 and defence of 2023 budget of the company before the committee on Mines and Steel in Abuja.

He explained that before the engagement of the security personnel, equipment worth billions of naira were stolen from the facility and that the amount utilised for the payment of some staff, who were not in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System was meaningful, owing to the services they offered.

His words: “Anytime you look at the personnel cost, most of the question people ask is, why are you keeping these personnel? Ajaokuta investment is within six billion to eight billion dollars and if you look at the amount we are spending to keep the plants, I don’t think that is too much.

“Aside that, one of the basic thing we should go to later, if I finish the details of this performance is the security issues. We have spent a lot of money also in security. As at today, we have over two hundred and twenty security guards that are officially not on the payroll of IPPIS.”

He also said the company engaged the Federal Fire Service, the military, and the Department of State Services, that the company ensure their welfare.

Abdul-Akaba, while calling for the removal of bureaucracies for the company to commence immediately, said, “If Ajaokuta project is initiated and completed, fund won’t be a problem but one of the problem is bureaucracy.”

He, therefore, maintained that Nigeria was not doing enough to utilise the Ajaokuta Steel to change the fortunes of the country.

Earlier, Chairman of the Committee, Ibrahim Ali, while nothing the place of steel industry in the development of the industry, maintained that Nigeria must be proactive to revive the mines and steel industry.

Some members of the committee raised some key questions on how long Nigeria would continue to play around the industrialisation.

They also questioned  the rationale behind the company taking care of the welfare of the Federal Fire Service and other individuals not captured in the IPPIS with some getting up to five hundred thousand naira for doing nothing.