ILIGAN - Four-hundred hectares of land and properties of the foreclosed National Steel Corporation (NSC) have been auctioned by the local government due to tax delinquency.

"NSC's unpaid tax amounts to over P4 billion," Iligan City acting Mayor Jemar Vera Cruz said.

However, there was no bidder during the auction, which prompted the city treasurer to forfeit the properties in favor of the city government.

Two days before the auction, NSC liquidator Atty. Danilo Concepcion protested the sale of NSC properties, citing a Makati Court decision clearing NSC of real property tax liabilities after NSC's secured creditors and shareholders sold their interests in plant assets to Global Steelworks International Inc. and Global Ispat Holdings Inc in 2004.

NSC was once the largest steel mill in Asia but has been closed for more than two decades after it declared bankruptcy.