By Eyo Nsima
The chairman of Dangote Group and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, Wednesday, said only one-third of $2.76 billion, representing 20 per cent minority interest in the Refinery would be paid in cash.
In an interview with Arise TV, monitored by The Daily, www.thedaily-ng.com, “So, these are the things that people don’t really understand and I want to really clarify it. When they talk about the $2.7 billion, you know, they (NNPC) are paying one-third of the money,” Dangote said.
“Another one-third of the money, again, will actually be paid through the supply of crude, with the deduction of a maximum of about $2 and some cents. And then one-third of it, which is another $850 to $900 million will be paid from the profit they are going to make from the business.
“So it’s not a cash transaction where they are paying all cash. You can see that if we don’t have confidence in what we are doing, we would have asked them to pay all cash.”
He said: “It makes me feel terrible to see a country as big as Nigeria, as resourceful as Nigeria and with this sort of population that we have 200 million-plus, we’re importing all our petroleum products. I mean, it is very painful.
“So with that, I thought in my mind, and I said that somebody has to address this issue. We tried before, in 2007 like what I said earlier on, but the government of that day changed their minds, and then we jettisoned the idea and returned them.
“But right now, we came back with the support of the government to make sure that yes, we help in addressing this issue of not only Nigeria. Because I’m a Nigerian and I’ve benefited quite a lot from Nigeria and if there are issues to be sorted out, I should be one of those who will bring solutions to our national problems.”
He also said on completion, the project, currently employing 29,000 Nigerians and 11,000 foreigners, would create more jobs and other opportunities to Nigerians.
