The house of representatives has pledged to increase the
budgetary allocation of the ministry of solid minerals development for the 2024
fiscal year.
This, the green chamber said, is to bolster the mining
sector’s contribution to the diversification of the economy.
Speaking during the ministry’s budget defence session, on
Tuesday, Jonathan Gbefwi, chairman of the house committee on solid minerals and
development, said Nigeria possesses the solid minerals required to boost the
country’s economy.
Gbefwi also said the sector has the capacity to attract
foreign exchange (FX) and substantially contribute to Nigeria’s gross domestic
product (GDP).
“In the 70s, the solid minerals sector was accounting for
over 50 percent of contributions to the GDP as against today where it is only
contributing a meagre 0.65 percent to the GDP,” the lawmaker said.
“All hope is not lost, especially because President Bola
Tinubu re-echoed the priority the present administration has placed on the
solid minerals sector.
“It is quite exciting to know that the helmsman of the
ministry has hit the ground running by embarking on strategic bilateral and
trade expeditions that will bring the needed investments into our country.”
However, Gbefwi said his enthusiasm about the impending
revamp of the mining sector was dampened when received the 2024 budgetary
estimates of the ministry.
According to the lawmaker, the estimates for the 2024 budget
are grossly inadequate to make any significant impact in the very critical
sector.
The committee chairman, therefore, pledged the house of
representatives’ resolve to not only substantially increase budgetary
allocations to the mining sector, but also work with the executive to
institutionalise reforms through the requisite legislative framework.
Meanwhile, during his presentation, Dele Alake, minister of
solid minerals development, restated the commitment of the federal government
to diversify the nation’s economy through solid minerals.
Alake said at least 44 economically viable minerals have
been discovered, adding that the imperative of sanitising the sector and
providing an enabling environment for mining operations can not be
overemphasised.
“When you do a comparative analysis of the countries that
survive on solid minerals in today’s world, they are numerous and some of them
don’t have the minerals as much as we do, but because we have had free flow of
money from oil, we behaved like the prodigal son and abandoned that which we
should have concentrated on, in the first instance,” the minister said.
“However, that is history. We are now at the cusp of
history. The onus rests on our shoulders — ours as executive, and yours as
legislature — to take our country out of the economic quagmire that it has
found itself because of the self-indulgent lifestyle.
“That is why the ministry of solid minerals was created.”
To sanitise the mining environment, the minister disclosed
that issues of insecurity are being tackled with inter-agency collaborations
alongside the ministry of defence to create a new security architecture that
will feature an infusion of a huge dose of technology.
Alake thanked the house committee for its commitment to
partner with the ministry in ramping up the ministry’s budgetary allocations for
the 2024 fiscal year.
He said the gesture would go a long way in boosting the
capacity of the government to invest in exploration which will culminate in the
generation of “big geo-data on mineral resources and consequently attract big
players which would translate to immense revenue for government and economic
development”.
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