The House of Representatives has mandated its committees on Privatisation and Commercialisation, Industry, and Steel to investigate the abandonment of Osogbo Steel Rolling Company and Nigeria Machine Tools (NMT).
The committees are to report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
The House urged the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to embark on regular inspection and monitoring of government-owned enterprises that investors have acquired.
These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion, titled: Need to Investigate the Privatisation and Subsequent Abandonment of Osogbo Steel Rolling Mills, moved by Adewale Morufu Adebayo and Akanni Clement Ademola.
The House noted that Osogbo Steel Rolling Company was one of the three Inland Rolling Mills in Nigeria established by an Act of the Federal Government of 1976 and officially inaugurated in 1983 to produce a maximum of 210,000 metric tonnes of iron rods annually.
The Green Chamber also noted that NMT was founded in 1980 to manufacture and distribute high-integrity machine tools and other engineering products and spares designed to serve the projects, operation and maintenance needs of a range of industries.
It noted that the two entities were critical components of the Nigerian industrial sector as the Osogbo Steel Rolling Mills produced part of the steel used in the construction of Africa’s largest Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.
The House said it was aware that the Privatisation and Commercialisation Act provided for the privatisation and commercialisation of Federal Government-owned enterprises as well as those in which the government had an equity stake.
The Green Chamber said it was also aware that both companies and other national assets were sold to private investors by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration through the BPE to bring in core investors – either foreign or domestic -to turn around the company and contribute to the nation’s economic growth.
It said Osogbo Steel Rolling Company was designed to be completed in three phases: the first phase was to produce 210,000 tonnes annually with 1,000 workers; the second phase was to increase the annual capacity to 420,000 tonnes of steel annually with a staff strength of 2,000; while the third phase was to increase capacity to 630,000 tonnes annually with 3,000 staff strength.
The House recalled that in line with the Privatisation Act, the Federal Government sought and got a Federal High Court order to liquidate Osogbo Steel Rolling Company and other steel rolling mills in 2005.
It said the stakeholders in Osun State, including lawmakers, were protesting the abandonment of Osogbo Steel Rolling Mills and Nigeria Machine Tools, calling for a review of privatisation, among others.
It regretted that the abandoned properties of the companies had become the hideouts for criminals, like gunmen, kidnappers, and drug dealers.
