As part of government’s economic diversification policy, the Nigerian Mining Cadastral Office, MCO, has generated over one billion naira as at April, this year, to the federation account, to increase the country’s revenue target and boost its Gross Domestic Product GDP.
The Director General of the Agency Engineer Obadiah Simon Nkom stated this during media interaction with mines and Steel Correspondents in Abuja, Nigeria capital.
Engineer Nkom explained that this was part of the agency’s effort to meet up with the federal government’s target in making the non oil sector one of the Economic driven sector for the government to improve the revenue generation of the country.
He also said the agency has registered more mineral titles compared to the previous years; “As at today one can say we have seven thousand and two hundred valid mineral titles and it is not by the number of the mineral tiltles that matters but active mineral titles is what is important in order to avoid titles that are just dormant.”
Engineer Nkom explained some of the achievement of the Mining Cadastral office.
“We have increase our revenue target, our mineral titles have also been increased, established zonal offices across the six geopolitical zones and we have very important project that are ongoing such as tama tic map at restricted areas and is an important project that cut across the whole sector,” he said.
Encourage Indigenous Mining
Engineer Nkom also said that the agency does not issue license of small scale mining to foreigners so as to encourage the indigenous mining to boost the mining activities and provide job opportunities for the youths.
“The agency gave license of small scale mining to foreigners and the essence is to encourage indigenous miners to have a stake in the mining sector and improve on their activities, “ he stated.
The Director General explained that agency is issued licenses on three format which is based on transparency, use it or loss it and first come first serve bases.
Lateefah Ibrahim
