Ex-AMCON boss not involved in sale of Delta Steel company – Group

The Arewa Youth Assembly has dismissed reports that the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), under then Managing Director Ahmed Kuru, sold Delta Steel Company to Premium Steel and Mines Limited just four months after the latter was incorporated. In a statement, Mohammed Salihu Danlami, Speaker of Arewa Youth Assembly, said the “publication has been […]

The Arewa Youth Assembly has dismissed reports that the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), under then Managing Director Ahmed Kuru, sold Delta Steel Company to Premium Steel and Mines Limited just four months after the latter was incorporated.

In a statement, Mohammed Salihu Danlami, Speaker of Arewa Youth Assembly, said the “publication has been misinterpreted, full of baseless and unfounded allegations, and deliberately politicized to mislead the general public and keep them from knowing the actual truth.”

Danlami said: “The DSC was sold following the Federal Government’s privatization policy, where  80 percent of the Company’s shares were sold to Global Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd, GINL, on the 8th of February, 2005, while the Federal Government (through BPE) retained 20 percent.

“AMCON acquired the plant by virtue of the Loan Purchase Agreement that certain banks as creditors of Delta Steel Company entered into with AMCON due to DSC’s inability to pay up the debt they owed these banks and AMCON subsequently sold the assets to Premium Steel Limited in 2015 under the leadership of Mr Mustapha Chike Obi, the then Managing Director.”

The statement added: “The process of both acquiring and sale happened before Ahmed Kuru became the Managing Director of AMCON. It is therefore absurd to even allege that a man who took over the helms of affairs of the agency two decades after the first privatisation and a sale that happened before his tenure has anything to do with it.

“Furthermore the DG, BPE Mr Ayodeji Gbeleyi never mentioned the name of Ahmed kuru as he wasn’t in office when the transaction routinely took place. Therefore, mentioning his name is mischief with intention to misinform the public in an unjustifiable media trial.

“While we admonish those behind the misinterpretation and spreading of false and baseless allegations to desist from doing so, we call on the public to disregard these false accusations against Ahmed Kuru as they are not true but only made up to destroy his hard-earned reputation.”