BPE Contests Court Appeals on Sale of ALSCON to BFIG
James Emejo The Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Dikki, has said it is currently appealing a high court judgment which ordered the privatisation agency to give another opportunity to the Bancorp Financial Group (BFIG) - the preferred bidder of the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) to make payment for the plant.
Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, he said the BPE found the high court order rather curious that BFIG should be given another opportunity to pay “on a matter that had already been ruled by the Supreme Court.”
He said the appeal had become inevitable to protect the sanctity of future transactions.
According to him: “Our grounds of appeal is that if we allow this thing to succeed, then we will never close any transaction.”
He added: “We are businessmen, they are lawyers; we from the business side didn’t understand why the high court will give BFIG a second chance to pay when they had failed in the first instance. So we have appealed the matter to the appeal court saying that this judgment by our opinion is wrong because you do not give a purchaser in our process two opportunities to pay when he has failed to complete or make any payment in the first instance. So that’s where we are; BFIG obtained a judgment at the high court and we have appealed.”
Dikki said: “And that’s why as a matter of duty to protect the sanctity of transaction, we would pursue this matter to the Supreme Court and make sure that busy-bodies like BFIG do not truncate the reform programme of the federal government.”
According to him: “After they obtained the high court judgment, BFIG officials went to a paramount ruler’s palace and carried it in the headlines in the network news that they were going to take over the company, they are going to revamp it and create jobs and so on, for a company that you didn’t pay a kobo. It’s very important for us that we pursue this matter to its logical conclusion and obtain a ruling that stops busy bodies like BFIG from truncating the reform programme of the federal government.”
The BPE boss always disputed allegations by BFIG that UC Rusal, the current management of ALSCON, had been engaged in asset stripping of the company.
He said: “On three different occasions, BFIG have planted stories in the press saying that Daison Rusal are asset stripping and on three occasions, the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) sent delegations from the ministry of mines and steel, from BPE, from labour and from the private sector members that are in the NCP; one committee was chaired by r Emmanuel Amadi and had a member of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the delegation and they went round the plant and there was no evidence of asset stripping.
According to him: “We have had these false information of assets stripping one, two, three times and we have gone and investigated it and there was no evidence of assets stripping. And that’s why we are wondering, what does BFIG want? Are they working in the national interest or are they an interest that is extraneous to the interest of the nation? We would wait to find out.”