Dangote said the Consortium will inject $200 million into the first phase of the project while the second phase will gulp about $3 billion.  He also said his Group would invest $2 billion in the cement sector in the next three years.

He dispelled insinuation that Dangote Group was working towards a monopoly in the cement market.
“Its not a question of catching the entire market. Like I said earlier, if we don't build our economy nobody is going to do it. If anybody (else) is going to come in, he is quite welcome, it's a free entry, free exit market.  If you remember, the first factory that we had producing cement was in 1956. From 1956 up till the time that we entered into cement, the total production of Nigeria went as low as less than 2.3million tons. In a single location last week, we commissioned five million tons of capacity. If we are not there, you will not be able to build a house forever,” he said.

He said by 2010, prices of cement would be less than N1,000 per bag. “If you look at it today, we are selling cement at N1, 130 depending on the location. Ideally cement shouldn't cost, even in Abuja, more than N1, 200. Our capacity today, Obajana, Benue and the two terminals in Lagos and Port Harcourt, can churn out about 38,000 metric tons per day. That is about 2000 trucks per day. And we are going to achieve that in the next four months. In Obajana right now out of 15,000, we are operating about 5,000 metric tons. By next week we are going to be doing at about 10,000 metric tons.

“Eventually by 2010, we want to make history by making sure that cement does not cost more than N1, 000 anywhere in Nigeria. And quote me that is our target. Local production is under about 30 percent. But mind you, one single line of Obajana is bigger than all the production plants in Nigeria,” he said.

Chairman, Technical Com-mittee of the NCP, Mr. Patrick Akinkuotu assured the bidders that the transaction would be conducted through internationally accepted standards.

Meanwhile, oil workers under the aegis of National Union of Petroleum and natural Gas workers (NUPE-NG) yesterday protested the commencement of sale of government's equity share in two of the country's petroleum refineries - Port Harcourt and Kaduna - by the BPE. While the bidding exercise for the sale of the refineries and depots were going on at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, the oil workers staged their protest in front of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), a distance of 5km.

The workers who began their action at about 10.30am, took over the main entrance to the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp-oration (NNPC), blocking its main gate and making movement in and outside the premises of the oil company almost impossible for the greater part of yesterday.

Leader of the protest, Mr. Williams Ibiba Inko told newsmen that the workers were not happy over the way the privatization of the plants and depots were handled by government.

He said an immediate fall-out of the sale of these facilities, is loss of an estimated 4,000 jobs with no concrete arrangement on how to deal with the terminal benefits of the workers in place.

"BPE confirmed that the process will lead to job losses to the tune of about 4,000 when the two refineries and PPMC goes out for sale. What then happens to the pensions of NNPC staff? We are saying, yes you can privatize, but let us sit down and trash out the labor issues. Even some of our rights, we can negotiate them," he said.

While expressing the union's support for the current effort to reposition the refineries, the NUPENG chairman said  the union had last week signed an MoU with BPE  on the issue on the condition that "we would articulate our position and get back to them".

"This process is going to kill our pension. Most of the concerned staff have passed the employment age bracket. There is no way NUPENG and PENGASSAN will go ahead to fight against government policy, but how it is being implemented that is the problem. We believe it is being hijacked by the BPE to suit its purposes," he said.

Therefore, he said the workers want  to secure an agreement with government on some of the things it can offer them as palliatives.

“In Eleme Petroch-emical, till today, the workers do not know where the shares allocated to them are. We want to ensure that the proper partnering that takes place, unlike the case of Eleme Petrochemical where they say 51 per cent, we finally saw outright sale," he said.

Inko said the oil workers want to guard against what happened to NITEL workers and how they were thrown out without entitlements.

"We are pensionable staff and we realize that the new investors, being a capitalist would not be able to keep the number of staff.  We are saying, if these persons are going, what becomes their take home pay and on what basis are they going," he queried.

He advised that government should call in the experts, who would evaluate workers pension bill and the consequences of retiring more people into the pension fund.

"Right now we have about 8,000 NNPC pensioners out there and 9,000 people in the system sustaining them. If you shut out about 4000 after completing the process, only few persons would be contributing. Ultimately, it means the pension’s scheme can no longer hold," he warned.

Vice President of NUPENG, Comrade Bako Joseph Yuba said the protest is taking place simultaneously nationwide, adding the union has already shut down NNPC operations in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Mosimi and Kaduna.