The Nigerian Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Adeniyi Adebayo has inaugurated a standing committee on the setting up of centralised metal scrap dump sites in all the states of the federation and FCT.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Special Adviser on Media to the Minister, Mr Ifedayo Sayo in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The committee which drew its members from critical stakeholders in the iron and steel sector, including the National Association of Scraps and waste Dealers Employers of Nigeria (NASWDEN) is chaired by the Director, Industrial Development Department (IDD) of the Ministry, Mr Adewale Bakare.
The Minister while inaugurating the committee noted that the iron and steel sector is critical to the industrialisation of the nation’s economy, adding that the federal government hoped to leverage on the sector to attain the desired objective of industrialisation in the medium to long term.
“On this basis, my Ministry finds it quite expedient to come up with appropriate mechanisms that will ensure sanity, growth and development of the iron and steel sector value chain, of which scrap and waste resources management is of paramount importance,” he said.
He explained that the concept of the project indicated that it will create the spread of industrialisation across the country, with the attendant benefits in employment, infrastructural development and income generation, distribution and increase in Gross Domestic Products (GDP).
According to him, the dump sites when established will solve the challenges of unregulated dumping and scavenging of metal scrap that has led to vandalisation of government and private properties by hoodlums, unsorted/unclassified metal scrap types and uncoordinated/unified pricing of metal scrap, among others.
The terms of reference of the committee include; Interface with the 36 state governments for land allocation for the dump sites, to come up blueprint for the operations of the centralised scraps dump sites, to come up with measures that will eliminate smuggling and exportation of metal scraps, create a framework for sensitising local metal scavengers on the need to embrace the system of centralised scrap dump sites, explore funding options for the project, and set up a framework for flagship dumping sites in each state of the six geo-political zones of the country on a pilot basis.
Chairman of the committee, Bakare assured the Minister of the readiness of the committee to work assiduously to ensure the success of the assignment.
