20th July, 2017
Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development on Thursday said Nigerian miners could operate wherever provided they were working within the laws of that land.
The minister made the assertion at the two-day conference on Sustainability in the Extractive Industries organised by the CRS-in-Action in Abuja for stakeholders in the extractive industries.
Fayemi, who was speaking against the backdrop of some Nigerians recently caught in the Niger Republic as illegal miners, noted that the Federal Government would not promote such illegality.
“Nigerian government wants our nationals to operate legitimately and legally wherever they are.
“The Nigerian government wants our nationals to operate legitimately and legally wherever they are and if they are not operating legally and legitimately we cannot hold brief for them.
“We can only encourage them to take the necessary papers that will allow them to operate legally in the Niger Republic.
“ Nigeria also has an influx of foreigners who troop into the country and excavating minerals without legitimate papers; we are also doing the same thing the Niger Republic is doing,’’ he said.
He said that to guard against illegal mining in the country, the ministry had constituted a Mining Surveillance Taskforce that would ensure that the act of illegal mining in the country was reduced.
Fayemi noted however that for the poor Nigerian miners just trying to eke a living and since the land “is their ancestral land’’, they would be encouraged to formalize their businesses to reduce poverty.
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“The Federal Government is also prepared to assist small scale miners in formalizing their businesses into cooperatives so that they can attract loans from banks,’’ he said.
He said that if small scale miners form cooperatives, they would not be easily cheated by the middlemen in the sector who would come and offer them peanuts for their products.
The minister said all these incentives were given to the small scale miners because the Federal Government would want them to grow but not by punitive measures.
He said that government was also ready to assist big players in the sector interested in exploration and help them to transit to production if the need be.
“Government is happy to work with them to achieve that purpose,’’ he said.
On the environmental issue, the minister said that the ministry would not give license to operators in the industry until they had done their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
He said that the EIA was important to avoid what happened in the Niger Delta.