The Director General, Nigerian Mining Cadastre, Mr Obadiah Nakom has said licenses are significant in boosting economy, attracting investment and assured transparency in the mining sector.
The DG stated this in an interview with journalists at closing ceremony of the 8th edition, Nigeria Mining Week in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
“Licenses is quite key in line with this administration of renewed hope, defiantly we are on line, the mining cadastres is operating on line and being online simply means that there is transparency, what I see is in the mining cadastre is what you see in your phone or anywhere in the world and once we are able to have system in place which is one of its kind it is going to boost investment in the mining sector”.
“If licensing is not transparent enough then there is no way it will be able to attract the needed investment particularly in the sector and as long as we get it wrong in the Mining title administration then it becomes a big problem and then there is no way people will be to come and invest, particularly there is need to also have security of tenure, people who have licenses should be confident, have plan and security of tenure . The Director General, Nigerian Mining Cadastre said.
Mr. Nakom called on people who have licenses and failed to utilise within the period of time, the license will be suspended.
“At the same time there is the concept of people having licenses and not actually using it, so there are two major ways you can loss a license, first of all non- payment of annual service fees and the second one is dormant activities in addition to other obligations spelt out clearly in the act. that is why of our key principles in the mining cadastre act which is use it or you loss it. Because at the end of the day if you don’t use it you loss it. and the most important thing at the end of the we need to be able to open up a mine field in terms of people who are holding licenses and lack the technical capability or they have had plans and after six months or one year you find out that they needed financial funding and they couldn’t get it so at the end of the day it affects their activities and have no option but to stay back”.
“There are instances in terms of mining licenses where tenure is suspended, you have a license for three years and for one reason or the other you have challenges that may lead to tenure suspension, you can be suspended for a maximum of one year to stop counting”. DG Mining Cadastre emphasised
On strengthening the activities of Agency
“we carried out sensitization of various stakeholders in the six geo political zones, we will continue to sensitise people on adopting to the use of the emc post, couple with digitalisation and online system , its not everyone has computer literacy. but for now we are hundred percent online, and in a real time we have migrated and we have forty percent of people who have submitted applications without being assisted by the mining cadastre and we are working towards making sure that hundred percent of people who submit their applications without coming to the mining cadastre office”. Mr. explained
Addressing investment bottleneck
“The government is partnering with investors to be able to see their own angle, tell us what you are facing and then we can be able to support you to solve the problem”. DG assured.
Mr. Nakom further said the Mining week has achieved the aim of bringing awareness of the prospects of the sector.
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