America’s BFIGroup, the main winners of the 2004 privatisation bid for Aluminum Smelters Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, located at Mboho community of Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State, has expressed concern over the shutting down of the plant and weeding off of over 100 workers, most of whom are technical staff.
Addressing newsmen in his Abuja office, the President of the group, Dr Reuben Jaja, decried what he described as “the sustained systematic destruction of ALSCON, even when the case between his group and RUSAL has been determined by the Supreme Court and other matters still pending in court.
According to Jaja, the illegal occupation and operations of RUSAL in ALSCON has totally depleted the value of the plant and, at the same time, defeated the economic reasons for which the Government of Nigeria committed over $3.2bn taxpayers’ money to the establishment of the Smelter Company.
He condemned the illicit sale of parts of the plant by RUSAL to raise money to pay its workers, adding that such were not responsible measures that organization that has the interest of an emerging nation at heart should take.
Jaja pointed out that as at 2004 when his group bided for ALSCON, the human resource base was very robust, parading a team of experienced engineers trained all over the world – Russia, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, etc. who were there operating in different areas of mechanical engineering, metallurgical engineering, electrical and civil engineering.
For the BFIGroup, the calculated sack of workers, most of whom are technical staff members who understand the dynamics of the plant, could be to enable them carry out unperturbed striping of the remaining assets of the plant. “It is indeed very suspicious” the group said.
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