The Nigerian Senate has frowned at the 4.2 billion Naira allocated as personnel cost in the 2024 budget, for unverifiable workers at the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.
Allegation of unverifiable workers at the non-functional steel company was brought to bare during an investigative hearing yesterday on alleged incidences of corruption and inefficiency in Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and National Iron Ore Mining Company from 2002 to date, by an ad hoc committee of the Senate.
The deputy chairman of the committee, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from Kogi Central, tackled the sole administrator of the steel company, Summaila Abdul Akaba, on the number of workers collecting salaries from 4.2 billion Naira appropriated for personnel cost in the 2024 budget.
Akpoti-Uduaghan remarked that being an indigene of the area, and desirous to get the Steel company revamped, she has made unscheduled visitations to the company site and hardly could she find up to ten workers in the company, noting that despite such humongous amount of money being spent as personnel cost by the Steel Company on yearly basis, no steel had been manufactured nor mill rolled out.
However, the chairman of the ad hoc committee, Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire, in his closing remarks, said presentations and submissions made by various stakeholders would be thoroughly looked into by the committee.
