BPE fraudulently sold ALSCON to RUSAL, BFI Group alleges

Vanguard

10 August 2011

BPE fraudulently sold ALSCON to RUSAL, BFI Group alleges

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BY Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

ABUJA — The controversy over the 2004 sale of the Aluminum Smelting Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State, resonated yesterday as the original breferred bidder in the privatisation process, BFI Group of America insisted that Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE, fraudulently sold the company to RUSAL against its own rules.

In a document circulated among media houses in Abuja, BFIGroup headed by a Nigerian-American, Dr. Reuben Jaja, alleged that the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo had predetermined to sell ALSCON to RUSAL and that it only used the American firm to create a semblance of a genuine privatisation process.