Mining Cadestral Office issued 7000 licenses in 8 years — DG

The outgoing DirectorGeneral of the Mining Cadastral Office (MCO), Engineer Mohammed K. Amate, says the agency has issued over 7,000 licenses in the past eight years.

Amate stated this while speaking to journalists during the send forth ceremony held in his honour at the MCO headquarters in Abuja, on Friday.

“The Mining Cadastral Office (MCO) is a dynamic office. There are certain rules and regulations that guide us. We issue licences and unfortunately there are instances where we have to cancel licences. From inception till date, we have issued well over 7,000 licences, but today what we have on our database is just well about 4,500 licenses because some have been cancelled, some expired, while some are not active,” Amate said.

He also stated that investors who intend to invest in the solid minerals sector can get their licences in 30-45 days.

“Before the coming of the Mining Cadestral Office, it used to take up to one to two years to get one licence, but we are proud to say that today, we can issue licenses within 30 to 45 days,” he said.

The new director general, Engineer Obadiah Simon Nkom, said since the diversification of government into agriculture and the solid minerals sector, the Mining Cadestral Office has been a key agency, especially in the development of the solid minerals sector.

“What we want to do is to restore investors’ confidence; being able to attract more investment into the sector and making sure we bring speculators to nil,” Nkom said.