Chinese, Indian Firms Illegally Mining Nigeria’s Solid Minerals

Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (NEITI) has disclosed that Chinese
and Indian
companies have been involved in illegal
mining of
Nigeria’s solid mineral deposits across the
country.
Chairman of the National Stakeholders
Working Group
(NSWG) of NEITI, Mr. Ledum Mitee,
confirmed at the
presentation of the inaugural audit report on
Nigeria’s
solid mineral sector, which was
commissioned and
released weekend in Abuja that several
illegal artisanal
operations in Nigeria’s solid mineral sector
were being
sponsored by Chinese and Indian
companies but with
support from local authorities.
Mitee noted that base-line information
gathered from
scoping studies that were conducted earlier
in the
sector, revealed discrepancies in
government receipts
and operating companies’ payments within
the periods.
He expressed regrets that illegal mining has
continued
to thrive in the sector as a result of an
apparent lack
of regulation.
He said the illegal miners “engage local
artisans and
government authorities to do this at
ridiculously low
rates and export to make extreme profits
but NEITI
will all the required provide information to
enforcement
agencies with which they can use to hunt
down such
firms in the sector.”
Mitee stated that the Nigerian government
got about
N54.5 billion from 2007 to 2010 as revenue
from
payments made by companies in the forms
of
royalties, ground rents/annual surface
rents, taxation
and levies.
According to him, the domination of the
solid mineral
sector by construction companies and
cement
manufacturers was unhealthy to a sector
that should
attract full time investment with capacity to
generate
good number of employment
opportunities.
He explained that the activities of artisanal
miners
were actually not captured in the audit,
considering
their somewhat mode of operation, which
proved quite
challenging in garnering whatever
payments received
by the government from them.
“It is NEITI’s firm belief that the time for
Nigeria to
fully embrace the development of the solid
minerals
sector of the extractive industry is now, we
successfully undertook a scoping study in
the solid
minerals sector which confirms that all
notable
minerals are available in commercial
quantity in all
states, local government and communities
in Nigeria
starting from gold, bitumen, diamond, salt,
coal, iron
ore, limestone, lead and zinc and the
country can
benefit in revenue from them,” Mitee said.