By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja – The Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, has called on mining and mineral resources experts to provide inputs into mining governance to achieve diversification drive of the Federal Government.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mohammed Abbas, made the call at the opening of the three-day maiden edition of National Council on Mining and Mineral Resources Development on Tuesday in Abuja.
Abbas said the enormous challenges in the sector needed to be strategically addressed to make the sector vibrant to contribute to economic development.
He listed some of the challenges in the sector as insufficient funding, lack of geological data, weak institutional capacity of the supervising ministry and limited supporting infrastructure among others.
Others, he said, were low productivity, illegal mining and community challenges, weak ease of doing business and perception issues as well as protracted litigation on legacy assets.
According to him, one of the critical ways to address the challenges is to put mining governance articulately right throughout its entire value chain (exploration, mining, beneficiation and trade).
“In order to achieve this, the government realised the need to evolve an approach for stakeholders’ engagement at the federal, state and local governments.
“This approach culminated to the launching of the Sector’s Growth Roadmap, a document meant to address the sector’s challenges.
“It is also meant to guide the ministry to align its mandate to the economic pillar of the Federal Government on diversification, job and wealth creation using the sector.’’
Abbas said the Federal Government, in line with the quest of engaging stakeholders in the sector, sought and obtained the Federal Executive Council’s approval to establish a National Council of Mining and Mineral Resources Development.
Prof. Ibrahim Garba, the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in his presentation, said that Nigeria was blessed with abundant mineral resources but lacked political will to utilise them efficiently.
Garba, who spoke on“Mineral Sector Governance – challenges of Federal/State Cooperation’’, said all the states in the country had one mineral resource or the other.
“God so loves Nigeria that states that don’t have oil have mineral resources in abundance, so let us develop mining so that we can diversify the economy,’’ he said.
The professor also called on the state governments to provide enabling environment for the development of the mineral resources, adding that they should also provide incentives for investors.
“You must make life easy for investors to come, make it easy for the investors by targeting the mineral you have so that people can invest.
“You should balance the right of people and the right of the investors; don’t connive with your people and drive the investors away,’’ he said.
He, however, told the stakeholders to study the Minerals and Mining Act to know their roles in the development of the mining sector.
The meeting, which started with the technical session, is expected to discuss memoranda in five chosen thematic areas for approval at the ministerial session.
The permanent secretary is the chairman of the technical session while Minister of Mines and Steel Development will chair the ministerial session on Thursday.
The participants include ministry’s technical and other relevant departments and agencies, mining operators, Mining Association of Nigeria, Chambers of Mining and Industries, state commissioners and stakeholders from security agencies.
The theme of the three-day meeting is “Enhancing Mineral Resources Governance towards economic growth and diversification’’. (NAN)