Nigeria, UAE to track down illegal gold transactions

The Federal government in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to track the huge illegal movement of gold from Nigeria to Dubai.

Mr Olamilekan Adegbite, Minister of Mines and Steel Development, announced this in the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum. According to Adegbite, the Nigerian government is currently negotiating a bilateral agreement with the UAE to check every gold entering Dubai from Nigeria.

He noted that a huge quantity of gold was moved from Nigeria illegally on a daily basis to Dubai, adding that the gold passed through UAE police freely unknown to them that royalties were not paid to Nigeria.

“The UAE collect their own charges on gold that arrived in Dubai airport but Nigeria government has told UAE to ask anyone entering Dubai with Nigeria gold to present a certificate of exportation got from Nigeria before allowing them to pass.

“We have agreed with UAE to seize any gold from Nigeria without the certificate of exportation; we told them that the value of the gold will be shared equally as an incentive for UAE to eradicate illegal exportation of gold from Nigeria to Dubai.

“All we expected from whoever that is travelling from Nigeria to Dubai with our raw gold is to pay a royalty to the Nigeria government and such person will be given a certificate of exportation.

“The certificate of exportation will be automatically integrated into the Nigeria Customs Services system, our law accepts exportation of gold but royalty must be paid,” he said.

Suzan O/NAN