Nigeria's failed dream of becoming a steel
producing nation will soon be actualised, the new management consultant
handling the Ajaokuta steel company, ISPAT industries of India has said.
ISPAT's resident director, Mr. George Thomas
told newsmen in New Delhi, on the sidelines of a breakfast business meeting
with president Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday, that with just about three
months into their takeover of the plant, they have been able to roll out
some byrotes.
�We expect to make more progress in the next
three months,� assuring that ISPAT was very optimistic that Ajaokuta would
be successfully turned around and that Nigeria could join the league of
steel producing nations in the world.
``We are using the best technology in the
world,'' he said, adding that with the kind of devoted and experienced
workforce that his company inherited in Ajaokuta, he was very optimistic of
a quick result.
George said that although an initial power
problem was identified immediately after the takeover of the company from
the former managers, SOLGAS, he believed the problem could be overcomed in
the next three months.
``I suppose in the next three months we will
get the blast furnace and some of the rolling mills in full swing, adding
that the furnace and wirerod mill have since been commissioned.''
He said that ISPAT had no plans of making any
structural changes in the plant or dislocating the workforce there, adding:
�We look upon the workforce there as human capital, we want to use them as
assets because we do not consider them as liabilities�.
On how much the company hopes to inject into
the Ajaokuta steel to restore full production, the director said that ``a
precise figure has not yet been arrived at,� but that a comprehensive survey
of all that was required was being made.
NAN reports that the director was in Delhi to
represent ISPAT at a breakfast interractive session with Obasanjo, who was
on a two-day visit to India to canvass support for his reform programme and
also invite investors into the country.
ISPAT took over the management of the steel company from SOLGAS,
an American power supply company, which managed it for about one year but
failed to deliver on its promise to inject huge capital into the company and
restore it to full production.
