Nigeria will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Russian government to facilitate the completion of Ajaokuta Steel before the end of January, according to Olamilekan Adegbite, minister of Mines and Steel Development.
Speaking in an interactive session with business editors and correspondents in Lagos, Tuesday, Adegbite said the completion would be on a government-to-government basis.
The MoU, he said, was a fallout from a trip made by President Muhammadu Buhari to Russia in October last year.
“By the end of this month, an MoU with the Russian government with be signed in order to enable us complete the project,” he said.
According to the minister, part funding for the project would come from Afreximbank while the repayment would come from the Ajaokuta project when it starts operations fully.
Afreximbank will be pumping in $1 billion while the Russian government is bringing in $460 million with an interest payment less than 5 percent, the minister said.
He noted that the project would be on Built, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. The Russian government would complete the project, operate it for an agreed period of time and then transfer it to the Nigerian government.
On the benefit of the project, he said it would create jobs for the country’s population and help in achieving the government’s mandate of lifting over 100 million people from poverty in 10 years.
