NSIA Interested In Reviving Ajaokuta Steel, Others

The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority says it is interested in reviving the Ajaokuta Steel Company.

Apart from the Ajaokuta Steel Company, the agency is also interested in reviving other moribund assets to enable the country to reap the benefits of the huge investments the government had made in them.

The Managing Director, NSIA, Mr Uche Orji, said these on Monday in Abuja at the 2019 Leadership Forum Series.

He added that the authority was also looking at investing in the Nigeria House in London to make it more commercially viable.

Orji said the investment pattern of the authority was determined by its importance to the entire country, the ability to attract handsome returns on investment and ability to attract co-investors.

He said while the NSIA was interested in some of the assets, it was currently constrained by funds available at its disposal for investments.

Orji said unlike countries such as Norway, Saudi Arabia and others which had large pool of investible funds in their sovereign wealth funds, the NSIA had just about $1.7bn.

He said the NSIA, as part of renewed efforts to bring healthcare closer to the people, had invested over N350m to revive the Cancer Centre at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

The NSIA boss said through this investment, the NSIA had been able to make it the best centre in Africa.

Orji said similar investment was being extended to the Advanced Diagnostic Centres at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia; and the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

He said one of the major objectives of investing in the health care centres was to reduce the cost of treating cancer patients abroad by Nigerians.

Orji said that the Cancer Centre in Lagos was presently treating 100 patients daily and it was expected to treat about 200 patients daily in the next few months.