The House of Representatives Committee on Industry has berated the Federal government and well-to-do Nigerians over their inability to complete the Ajaokuta Rolling Mill.

The chairman of the committee, Alhaji Mohammed Onawo stated this while addressing reporters in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, after his committee's oversight function to KAM Industries Limited.

Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala visit the private indigenous steel rolling mill recently.

Alhaji Onawo said: "What we have seen today is quite overwhelming. What we have seen today is a dogged effort of an individual determined to make a change in Nigeria. In the past, people have depended so much on government.

"That is why I say it is a challenge to the Federal Government for not being able to complete Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill. It is a challenge to other billionaires in Nigeria who just stock money in their houses or take this money outside the country and when they die, their family cannot even access it.

"There have been cries by everybody that there is no good road. That's why industries cannot function. With that same environment, you can see the difference here. It is just a way of commitment and this goes to show that government alone cannot do it.

"So, if edifices like this are established, you can be sure that Nigeria, in the shortest possible time, can become an industrialised nation. Without things like this, our dream of becoming one of the 20 most developed economies of the world by the year 2020 can be a mirage."

On the prohibitive lending rates by commercial banks, the legislator said that "the Federal Government and the National Assembly are frowning at the present high rate of lending and high rate of interest.

"President Jonathan has even said that if the commercial banks do not change their attitude towards investors, the intervention funds that they receive for industrial development or industrial financing would be channelled through development banks; and if they allow that to happen, it would be they that would be losing.

"Outside this country, people take loan on interest of two per cent. Some of them even go to take loans whose interest rates are very low and sell to entrepreneurs at high rate. They are just interested in making money; they are not interested in developing the economy," he said.

In a remark, Deputy Managing Director of the company, Hajia Mariam Yusuf put the current workforce of the company at 2,000.

She added that the company would employ about 1, 000 more when it's cold steel rolling mill is completed.

"Distinguished members of the National Assembly, what you are about to see today is our cold steel rolling mill designed to make car bodies; galvanised roofing sheets, head pans, shovels and more.

"The establishment of the cold steel rolling mill in Kwara State will create satellite investment opportunities for the downstream companies who will cash in on the opportunity of the cold steel to fabricate and manufacture so many products; including a car assembly plant," she said.