Minister for Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, said on Monday, April 29, that the Nigerian government was working to ensure that the country becomes an investor’s destination in the area of solid minerals development.
He also said that communities, where solid minerals are extracted from, must henceforth derive maximum benefit from solid minerals exploration.
The minister spoke at a two-day national stakeholders’ roundtable on sustainable development of the mining industry organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Abuja.
He said plans to process raw minerals locally will now be part of the conditions for obtaining mining licences in the country, adding that the government will no longer accept what he called pit to port system in the mining sector.
The Minister also said that the Minister has trained and deployed about 2,160 Mining Marines to all states of the federation to help fight the activities of illegal miners.
He said the government was putting in place concrete measures that would shift attention away from fossil fuels to solid minerals as a way of generating revenue for the government.
Alake said that conscious of the limitation of time and resources, the Ministry has developed a Seven-Point Agenda, a roadmap for the transformation of the Mining Sector for national prosperity and international competitiveness.
He listed the agenda as the establishment of the National Solid Minerals Corporation, the establishment of the Mining Police, the gathering of comprehensive data on Nigeria’s minerals to de-risk the sector, and aggressive and pro-active promotion of Nigeria’s mineral endowment to attract investors.
Others are combating illegal mining by replacing artisanal mining with cooperative mining, value Addition through industrial processing of extracted minerals and reduction of export of raw minerals, and Human development of mining communities through enforcement of Community Development Agreements.
