ALSCON loses 53% of asset value

Facts have emerged that the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria, currently being managed by a Russian firm, RUSAL, may be facing a severe liquidity crisis owing to huge liabilities in its accounts. The company’s financial statement for five years, covering 2007 to 2011, which was audited by KPMG Professional Services, revealed a sharp decline in its total asset value.

The audited five-year account, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent on Sunday in Abuja, put the total value of the company’s net assets as at December 31, 2011 at N14.574bn.

The December 2011 figure of N14.57bn indicates a huge decline of N16.40bn or 53 per cent over its total asset value of N30.97bn in 2007.

For instance, an analysis of the company’s five-year account between 2007 and 2011 showed that the aluminium firm lost N5.79bn of its asset value in 2008; N5.83bn in 2009; N4.50bn in 2010 and N274m in 2011.

Apart from the decline in asset value, the account revealed that the company had suffered persistent losses within the period under review.

For instance, it recorded a loss before tax of N5.79bn in 2008; N5.83bn in 2009; N4.50bn in 2010 and N274.25m in 2011.

It was gathered that lack of maintenance, employees’ reduction, and inability to pay for gas supplies had led to shutdown of production in the plant.

For instance, the Chairman, ALSCON’s branch of Steel and Engineering Workers Union of Nigeria, Mr. Linus Usen, had last Wednesday led workers to protest the non-payment of their terminal benefits.

Ulsen said the union was not pleased with the company’s decision to downsize without the payment of workers’ terminal benefits.

He said, “We are aggrieved. The protest is as a result of the way we have been treated by RUSAL. They are treating us as if we are slaves.

“We are not comfortable with how RUSAL is managing ALSCON. This plant has been here for quite some time now. From the time the Russians took over the management of the plant, it has been from one problem to another.”

But the Director, Government and Public Relations at ALSCON, Mrs. Tatyana Smirnova, attributed the crisis in the company to a long-running process of negotiations between the management and leaders of the trade union.

She said the management was working towards addressing the problems.



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