Russian Government To Fund Ajaokuta’s Completion – Minister

• Russian Government To Fund Ajaokuta’s Completion – Minister

It seems the Federal Government’s efforts to revive the nation’s largest steel mill, Ajaokuta Steel Complex, is about to be crowned as the Russian Government, through Russian Export Centre, will be providing fund for the completion.

The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite made the disclosure on Friday.

According to him, in line with the agreement recently signed by the Nigerian and Russian governments,  a Russian company called MetProm Group will take up the project.

The Russians “will come in with funding from the Russian Export Centre to complete Ajaokuta and make it functional,” he said.

The Ajaokuta Steel Complex facilities were inspected on Friday by Adegbite and the minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Uche Ogah.

Although massive plants and other gigantic equipment in the complex were idle and most of them had been overgrown with weeds, but engineers and technicians were at work in several workshops.

Adegbite who commended workers for maintaining the facilities in the steel complex, noted that steel complex is still existing due to the workers’ efforts. He said that the facilities were still functional.

“This place would have become a ghost town and you wouldn’t find anything anymore, the plants are here and they run them.

“There are a lot of dry runs and of course they do a lot of maintenance work which we want to upgrade to manufacturing.”

The construction of Ajaokuta Steel Complex started in 1979 with assistance from the then-Soviet Union. It is being built on a 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) in Ajaokuta, Kogi State.

However, since the construction of the projected, it has never started production.

Several attempts by the Federal Government to revive the project by transferring it to private investors failed and the government terminated the concessions.