ABUJA — President Olusegun Obasanjo may have stopped the on-going sale of the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) to the winner of the bid, BFIG of America which offered $410 million for 77.5 per cent equity in the company.
Presidency sources said that the presidency rejected the recommendation of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), headed by the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and directed that Rusal, the Russian company which had been disqualified by the NCP technical committee for presenting a conditional bid take up the company.
Rusal had offered a bid price of $205 million for the 77.5 per cent stake in the multi-billion naira company but had its bid rejected on Monday at the bid-opening ceremony for giving conditions on which it would pay the offer.
Chairman of the NCP Technical committee, Mr. Akin Kekere-Ekun, told the Rusal group publicly that their conditional bid was in contravention of international bidding process and as such disqualified.
But impeccable sources disclosed in Abuja, yesterday that, in line with President Obasanjo’s directive, BFIG was dropped and Rusal which team was already getting ready to fly back home on Tuesday was stopped and asked to meet the Minister of Power and Steel, Senator Liyel Imoke for negotiations.
Although Senator Imoke is a member of the NCP and ALSCON is under his ministry’’s supervision, he is neither the Chairman of the Technical Committee of the NCP nor a staff of the BPE and as such, ordinarily, shouldn’t be the one to lead negotiations on any privatization transaction.
It was reliably gathered that on the orders of the president, Mr. Kekere-Ekun, the BPE Director-General (D-G), Dr. Julius Bala and a few top presidency officials joined the minister and the Rusal team for negotiations.
Mr. Kekere-Ekun who has tried to maintain a principled stance since assuming the chairmanship of the NCP Technical Committee five years ago, told the Russians and the minister that they must be joking and that he would have nothing to do with their negotiation. He was said to have also told them that he was there, in the first place, only as a sign of respect for the president who had asked him to attend the meeting.
His position, it was learnt, was that the negotiation with Rusal was baseless, given the fact that the group had been disqualified on technical grounds. At this point, the minister is was learnt, made spirited efforts to get the Russians to review their bid price up-wards but to no avail. The, Russians, sources said, told the minister in clear terms that the team had better take their offer or leave but that under no circumstances would they increase their offer.
The meeting was said to have ended with all parties leaving either in anger and or in humiliation. Senator Imoke was said to have promptly reported the outcome of the meeting to the president who immediately asked that Dr. Bala be connected to him. The subject of call between the president and Bala, it was learnt was that he (Bala) must reach Mr Kekere-Ekun immediately and dissuade him from any action that might embarrass the government over the issue. Kekere-Ekun had in an interview with this paper, in 2001, threatened to resign his appointment should anyone try to tele-guide his committee.
Meanwhile, the BFIG team, yesterday, expressed surprise at the turn of events on core investor sale transactions, as they had waited in vain, for the NCP and BPE to invite them to commence negotiations. They said that there were still waiting to hear from the Presidency and that in spite of the development, they were still prepared to take over as core investor in ALSCON as according to them, they believed in that company and that they had the capacity to mobilise the bid price and pay within stipulated time.
