BPE Makes Efforts To Revamp ALSCON
AMINA HUSSAINI, Abuja
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) is making efforts to resolve the lingering legal tussle on the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) at Ikot-Abasi which is in a moribund state.
BPE Director-General Alex Okoh at a meeting Monday with the Governor of Akwa-Ibom state, Udom Emmanuel told the governor that the
Federal Government was concerned with the lingering legal tussle surrounding ALSCON and had placed the issue on the front burner.
BFIG, the initial winner of the financial and technical bid for the company before it was dropped for Russian Rusal has been locked in litigation with the BPE for over a decade on the sale of the aluminium company.
Okoh pointed out that if the Smelter Company was functioning, it would have provided about 8,500 direct jobs and 35,000 indirect jobs to Nigerians which Akwa-Ibom State would have been the greatest beneficiary.
He informed the governor that since the over 30 years of the Bureau’s existence, it had reformed over 230 previous Public Enterprises (PEs) in the Banking Sector, Oil & Gas, Telecoms, Pension and Debts’ managements among others.
On the Power Sector which is the biggest reform exercise executed by the Bureau, he said if the privatization was not carried out in 2013, the sector would have collapsed by now, adding that the Federal Government was addressing the hiccups being experienced in the sector.
Governor Emmanuel, pledged to support the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in its reform and privatisation mandate and called on Nigerians to support the privatisation agency in exercising its mandate.
“The stabilizing role of BPE in the nation’s economy and said that government was not usually a good manager of businesses but provides an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, hence the need to support the Bureau to carry out its assignment.
The state would leverage on the expertise of BPE towards the industrialization policy of his administration and called for greater synergy between the Bureau and the state” he said.
The Governor who was represented by his deputy, Mr.Moses Frank Ekpo, said the floating of an airline-Ibom Air by his government as part of his administration’s efforts to industrialize the state and that soon, the airline would be floated on the Capital Market for Nigerians to take up shares
with indigents of the state given preference.
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