The Senate on Tuesday frowned at the N4.2 billion appropriated in the 2024 budget as personnel costs for an unverifiable number of workers at the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.

Allegation of unverifiability of workers at the non-functional steel company came to the fore during an investigative hearing 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.

Specifically, the deputy chairman of the committee, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi Central), tackled the sole administrator of the company, Summaila Abdul Akaba, on the number of workers collecting salaries from N4.2 billion appropriated for personnel cost in the 2024 budget.

Natasha said: “The sole administrator of Ajaokuta Steel Company, I have a good question for you, being an indigene from the area, very worried about the state of the company and passionate about its revival, the sum of N4.2 billion was appropriated for personnel cost in 2024, but from several visitations I’ve made to the complex, hardly were 10 people sighted to be around or doing anything. So, who are the workers collecting monthly salaries from the appropriated N4.2 billion?

“Statistically, if N300,000 is paid monthly to 14, 000 people per month for a year, you get N4.2 billion or N500,000 to 8,400 workers per month in a year. Where are the 14, 000 or 8,400 workers in Ajaokuta, the appropriated N4.2 billion is being spent on ?”

But in an embarrassment-saving move, the Minority Whip of the Senate, who is also a member of the committee, Senator Osita Ngwu (PDP, Enugu West), prevented the sole administrator from responding to Natasha’s poser.

Senator Ngwu interjected, “Please don’t let us indict ourselves because the said appropriation was approved by the National Assembly.”

In his closing remarks at the investigative hearing, the chairman of the ad hoc committee, Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire (APC, Ondo Central), said presentations and submissions made by various stakeholders would be thoroughly looked into by the committee for a solution report on Ajaokuta Steel Company to the Senate.

Key stakeholders at the investigative hearing include the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, a director from the Central Bank of Nigeria, a director from the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Nigerian Society of Engineers, and Steel and Engineering Union Workers of Nigeria, among others.