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Failure of the
federal government to pay the severance benefits of former staff of
Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) Plc may trigger another
industrial crisis in the area, as the affected people at the weekend
threatened to use any means available to them to get their allowances.

Kelechi Otuh, Akwa
Ibom State council chairman, Metal Products Senior Staff Association of
Nigeria, said in Abuja at the weekend that prior to the privatization
of the company in 2007, the workers were owed over N6 billion, a
development he said led to the death of many of their members.

The chairman
refused to mention the other means they plan to use to recover their
money. He said the company commenced production of aluminium ingots in
1997, but stopped in 1999 owing to financial and technical problems. He
said this led to the downsizing of staff without due process of
disengagement.

“Only part payments of our benefits were paid,” he said.

Mr Otuh said long
before the BPE decided to privatize ALSCON, the workers went to court
to plead that the management of ALSCON be compelled to renegotiate
their collective agreements, which had expired in 2001. Both the
Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) and the National Industrial Court
(NIC) granted judgement in favour of ALSCON workers, by ordering that
ALSCON management should negotiate new conditions of service with the
workers. In their resolution of October 13, 2005, the National Assembly
upheld the IAP decision and ordered ALSCON management to comply without
further delay.

“We are calling on
the federal government and the Bureau of Public Enterprises, whose
responsibility it was to pay employees’ liabilities in privatized
enterprises, to urgently intervene in this protracted issue of unpaid
severance to former ALSCON employees so that the workers and the entire
community of Ikot Abasi will work and live in peace, especially now
that the amnesty programme is still on course,” he said.

Troubled privatisation

ALSCON began
operations in October 1997 and a few months later reached a production
capacity of 40 tonnes. The plant was designed to produce 193 000 tonnes
of aluminium annually. As at today, a tonne of aluminium costs about
3,000 USD. What this means is that at full capacity, ALSCON can
generate approximately $600 million every year.

The privatisation
of ALSCON was one of the most protracted in the annals of the Bureau of
Public Enterprises (BPE). The privatisation began in 2003 and lasted
till 2007, when ALSCON was handed over to DAYSEN Holdings, who invited
Russian Aluminium to manage the plant.

To date, some key
issues relating to the privatization have not been resolved, including
the unpaid severance benefits to former staff of ALSCON.

On June 3, 2007,
militants invaded ALSCON residential quarters and abducted six Russian
expatriates, including the Managing Director of the company. The
militants claimed that they had to strike in order to attract the
government’s attention to the plight of over 1800 former ALSCON staff,
whose severance benefits are being withheld by the BPE.

Most of these staff are still within Ikot Abasi, patiently waiting
for their entitlements, while over 20 of them have reportedly died.