Mining: FG Inaugurates 10-man Ministerial Committee on Revenue Actualisation
The federal government, through the ministry of Mines and Steel Development has inaugurated a 10-man Ministerial Committee on the optimisation of revenue from mineral resources sector.
The ministry said it was poised to actualise government’s commitment to lift about 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years through the diversification of the economy from crude oil to solid minerals exploration and exports.
The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Mr. Olamilekan Adegbite stated this when he Inaugurated the Ministerial Committee recently in Abuja.
He revealed that there are over 44 mineral resources in the country, noting that if all the revenue generated from them are properly harnessed, it would increase the revenue base of the country.
Adegbite, who tasked the Committee to ensure that revenue generated from artisanal miners’ activities are recorded and work out ways to block leakages from illegal mining accruals, added that blockage of mineral revenue leakages and proper recording would boost the economy and encourage more people to go into mining which would lift the masses out of poverty.
The inaugurated committee has the Minister of State, Mines and Steel Development, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah, as Chairman. Other members are the Permanent Secretary, Minstry of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Abdulkadir Mu’azu; Engr. O.S. Nkom- DG, MCO; representative of Nigerian Society of Mining Engineers; representative of Nigerian Society of Engineers; representative of Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Engr. J.O Adeyemo-Mining Consultant, representative of Miners Association of Nigeria; representative of Civil Explosives Dealers Association of Nigeria, Alh. Sani Shehu, among others.
In his acceptance speech, Ogah, thanked the minister for constituting the committee promptly and promised to work assiduously to achieve its mandate of generating revenue and increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.
Ogah, pledged that committee would be committed towards looking at the cause of the current low revenue generation in the sector and find ways of blocking such leakages.
He added that sharp practice by miners who make false declaration of their mineral production with the intention of evading revenue payments would no longer be tolerated.