How would you rate the capacity of the Solid minerals sector in the
nation’s economy?
To talk about the capacity of the solid minerals sector in the country, how important it is and what it can contribute to the
economy, let’s take our minds back to the past. There was a time in the economic history of this country when the solid minerals sector was contributing as much as 12 per cent to the GDP (Gross
Domestic Product). From the late 1950s before the discovery of oil,
the solid minerals and agriculture were the main stay of the economy.
From that period up till 1973 , to be conservative, because 1972
was the turning-point between the benefits we derived from the
mining and the curse that oil brought us. Up until 1972, we were
having about 12 per cent contribution from solid minerals to the
GDP. But the Indigenisation Degree of Gen. (Yakubu) Gowon in
1972 to transfer the solid minerals industries from foreigners to
indigenous operators seemed to be our undoing, unfortunately.
Like we often say that management is the problem of the African race, it all played out in
the solid minerals sector at that time. From
that particular time till date, mining has been in decline. And today, we are talking generously, based on the data by the Nigerian Bureau Statistics, of 0.3 per cent to the GDP.
Imagine the fall from 12 per cent to the GDP to as low as 0.3 percent.
The questions everyone is asking are: Does it mean that skills in the sector have been deteriorating? Does it mean that in this age of
science and technology, when people are acquiring better ways of
exploration and mining, are we on the decline?
Or is something really wrong with us? There is advancement in the
industry as technology advances, worldwide. But the major
problems towards harnessing the sector and having the sector and
the comatose situation in the sector is the fact that certain people
are profiting from the crisis.
What you are saying is that some people are benefiting from the
lack of development of the nation’s solid minerals sector?
Absolutely. The situation is such that the more the sector is
declining , the more the purses of some of these set of cabals within
the sector are enlarged.
If by 1972, the sector was contributing 12 per cent to the GDP, what
could have been missing, averagely, on an annual basis, by
abandoning the industry?
Assuming Nigerians take data seriously, assuming we build a
database where we have authentic information, in 2012 the
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Steel, came before
the nation and said, that from our precious metals alone,
specifically from our gold exploitation alone, Nigeria was losing $
50 billion on annual bases.
Do you mean $50 million or $50 billion?
I said $50 billion. If you convert that amount to the Naira, as the
exchange rate of that time, it would be about N8 trillion which is
about the budget of the federal government for two years.
What you are saying is that, if we had pursued the development of
the sector, gold alone could have given the nation as much as $50
billion annually?
Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. Only gold. We are not yet
talking about our potentials in bitumen; we are not yet talking about
our potentials in our traditional export. Niobite (Columbite) and
Cassiterite (Tin ore). Mind you the only two major minerals prior to
1972 that gave us a very high percentage of contribution to the GDP
were only exploitation of calciterite and niobium. Those were the
only two dominant minerals as at that time.
We cannot talk about what we are losing without knowing what we
have left untapped. What solid minerals do we even have in Nigeria
in terms of deposits in commercial quantities?
Based on the data at the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals, we have
34 exploitable and exportable minerals across the country. Back to
the issue of abandonment, we don’t need to ask why the sector was
abandoned because we all know it is because of the shift of
attention to oil. Where are other countries with similar endowments
on the scale?
There must be interest in solid minerals because without solid
minerals, there will never be industrialization. Without minerals,
there will be no meaningful economic development. This must be
underscored. So it is imperative for nations with solid minerals to
develop them. It would interest you that some nations that don’t
even have natural endowment like
United States of America you see them having strategic mineral
deposits that even surpasses those nations that are endowed in
terms of their solid minerals. It is so critical because without solid
minerals development in any nation there is no industrilisation and
there is no meaningful economic development of such nation.
That is why it is so important that the solid minerals aspect in
particular in Nigeria should be developed if we are to realize our
vision 20:2020.
What is the cause of a declining productivity in the solid minerals
sector?
I will handle the problem in two ways. Unfortunately, they are not
well educated on the potentials of solid minerals in the country.
One is that the government agency saddled constitutionally with the
powers to serve the sector, do not have adequate knowledge on
what potentials we have in the mining industry. Two, we also have
a situation that the government being so satisfied and
benchmarking their annual budget only on the revenue that comes
from oil and gas, do not think of diversification of this economy.
And the political will is not even there to look at alternatives.
Number three is the deliberate efforts of some few privileged people
within the sector to emasculate this sector and shield it from some
from initiatives coming from the outside. Those who are saddled
with the responsibility of manning this sector like the Ministry of
Mines and Steel Development and some few persons have taken the
sector captive and have shielded it from outside initiatives.
As an organisation what have you done on your own to deal with
these challenges?
In 2006, when I assumed the leadership of the Mining Association
in this country time till date, about 10 years ago, I consistently
articulated the problem within the mining sector, looked at the in
and out; and putting my years of experience and operation in the
industry for 25 years, I have consistently maintained that two
million jobs from 2006 to date could have been realised within the
tenure of any regime of four years.
And with revenue that will compete with revenue from oil and gas
can be realised from solid minerals development in the country. I
have done a lot on this by my letters, memos, articles and position
papers to both the National Assembly and the Ministry, and all are
documented. My argument is that the sector has the potentials of
diversifying our economy and I have consistently maintained this for
the past 10 years.
The sector over the years has been plagued with issue of funding
which has led to the abysmal performance of the sector, what do
you think as a mining professional should be done to address this
challenge?
I have come to a conclusion that funding is not a problem to this
sector after my long assessment of the sector with my 25 years
experience. Any public money you put into the sector right now
will be as a vapour in the hands of these cabals.
Their antecedents are up there because all the intervening of
funding that have gone into the sector like Ajaokuta, Aluminum
Smelting Company at Ikot Abasi, The defunct Nigeria Mining
Corporation, and all other companies the government have delved
into, what have they given to us and is nearly zero.
The solid Minerals Development Fund is what I advocated when I
took over the mantle of leadership in 2006. The clause 34 is where
you have that Solid Minerals Development Fund in the Mining and
Minerals Act What the agency under the Act set out to achieve is to
give developmental funding to the sector, to enable off-takers in the
sector to reduce geological funding that will generate data for the
sector, and nothing more than that.
Is the objective of the Solid Mineral Development Fund achieved?
Never!
Could it be because there is not enough data?
Nothing. We got some data from them and according to them they
have done airborne geophysical survey; done 100 percent, we have
mapping of 1-250, 000 on the scale of geophysical mapping of the
country. The question is where is the development?
What further data do you require in the industry?
We can have better geological data that will reduce the mapping to
a smaller ratio, maybe 1-100, 000. This one can be done by the
investors themselves. The one required generally is already there
according to the information by the Nigeria Geological Survey
Agency under the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.
Trying to reduce the mapping to a smaller ratio of say, maybe 1 to
100,000 or 1 to 10,000, like it is done in most places. These ones
can be done by the investors themselves. The basic one that is
required generally is already there, according to the information
given to us by the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA),
which is an agency under the Ministry Of Mines And Steel. If you
say the problem of data is our problem, before 1972, what was the
position of the data; when the sector was contributing 12 per cent
to GDP? The truth is that data is not the issue.
The issue is not funding also. The government officials in the Solid
Minerals industry, three years down the line, what have they done
for us? If you analyse the Ministry’s annual budget, 90 per cent is
going for payments of their own pockets, servicing the people that
they put in there, when the people that they put in there were
supposed to generate funds. They lack the capacity, because their
antecedent is zero.
Is it not because they are civil servants and by nature of their jobs
they are supposed to create the enabling environment rather than
generating funds ?
Unfortunately, like I told you, I initiated, essentially part and parcel
of that clause, clause 34 (of the Mining Act). There was no way we
would have, knowing the bureaucracy of the civil service, left that
thing (Mining Development Fund) in the hands of the civil servants.
We requested specifically that the chairmanship of that place should
be somebody with capacity, independent of the civil service. It is
supposed to be an entity that can be sued and have the right to sue.
It is supposed to be an autonomous agency. So, it was not
supposed to operate within the civil service bureaucracy, never.
That was not the concept. But unfortunately, you see that because
of the kind of stooges that have been planted to manage the
agencies were of the minister and of course, everybody is subjected
to the ministry and looking up to the ministry for money and other
things.
The day the agency was inaugurated, I came before the media to
say that this is going to be blackmail against operators in the
mining sector, because it is going to be a failure. What we are
seeing today has brought to question the essence of setting up the
agency in the first place; it has become a blackmail.
Anything we now ask of the government, they will say that
everything they have done for us has resulted in a failure. These are
deliberate booby traps set up by these cabals to continue in their
hegemonies.
If the Fund is given a leadership of an operator, will we see any
difference?
Absolutely. Any institution, no matter how good the policy
establishing it, without men and women with integrity running it, the
result will be a failure. For example, prior to (late) Dora Akunyili
coming to the leadership of NAFDAC, it was to many of us, not
existing, even though by law and structure, it was existing. But it
came into limelight and to the knowledge of everybody when a
person with capacity assumed the leadership of that institution.
This is similar to other institutions.
What are the expectations of the operators from this Fund?
The agency is to create fund, because mining is a long gestation
operation. Before you can begin to get the dividends from mining,
you must put much into exploration. One can be involved in
exploration for one year and at the end of it, might not get anything
that is of economic value. Again, one can also find out that at the
end of exploration, certain elements in the ore body may be harmful
and may not be suitable for the market, so you discard it and move
on.
Those kinds of fund, which I call developmental fund is to aid the
organization, so that at the end of such things, one do not have
heart attack, knowing that all one’s livelihood have been pumped
into the activity without yielding anything positive. It is supposed to
be for that kind of cushioning effect.
How do you help government to mobilize professionals to make the
sector viable?
We are using this opportunity to appeal to the conscience of the
nation, the fourth realm, to sensitise the government. Like I told
you, one of the major problems is that government lack good and
credible information regarding the mining sector. The government
should be sensitized that the country has an alternative in solid
minerals that can diversify the country’s economy from oil and gas.
Once the government can have that, the government should not just
listen to its agencies alone. For example, in the ministries, one
should not expect anything different from the back tapping and ego
massaging, because they want to speak well of themselves.
They told us in 2013 when there was the media chat by the then
Minister of Mines and Steel, that 1.25 million jobs were created
from the mining sector, those kind of thing, you take them up on it.
Ask them to show the indices. Meanwhile, the economic manager of
the country, the Minister of Finance, told us that the whole nation
recorded about one million jobs on an annual basis; what a
contradiction? If a ministry alone is saying it created 1.25 million
jobs, then who is fooling who?
We should be able to get to that point that nothing is happening. My
intention, which informed the crafting and documentation of the
Project Mining Modules, is to be able to bring the entire
stakeholders within the mining industry together, have a workshop,
unfold what the Modules entail and classify everybody according to
their profession in order to move them as foot soldiers within the
industry to unleash development. That is the objective of the
Modules.
A major problem in the sector is the issue of artisanal mining which
we also call illegal mining. This is causing serious hazard to the
country. What do you advise should be done about the issue?
On the issue of this unethical mining practice, which I term it to be;
it is a situation where you are pursuing a dog up till the point where
it gets to a wall, having nowhere to run to, the dog will turn back on
you. That is the scenario you find with the artisanal operators. The
mining operations are rural based and the people you find in the
rural areas, most of the time, hunger and poverty drive them into all
of these unethical and unprofessional mining operations, where
they see minerals lying fallow and nobody is taking them.
To make it worse, Nigeria now opens its borders to marauders that
call themselves investors from China and India, coming in with their
cash in their pockets, disguising themselves as investors, whereas
they are slave drivers; come to those communities where these
poverty stricken Nigerians leave and them telling them to get into
the earth, do anything they like, promising to reward them with cash
they have.
These poor people, seeing the cash in their hands would do
anything for these slave drivers and this is what is encouraging it.
By the time you stop all of these people who cannot do what they
are doing in Nigeria in their own country; there will be sanity within
the system.
Is there any law to stop that kind of thing?
Of course, it is imprisonment. The Minerals and Mining Act
empowers the government agency, the Ministry of mines and steel,
to imprison anyone found culpable. Again, by the constitution, the
solid minerals mining operation is vested on the presidency and the
president can by a simple fiat, a simple policy or pronouncement,
get every one of these slave drivers into prison.
These actions are not done elsewhere. Even in Cameroun, if you
pick diamond and the gendarmes catch you, you lose the diamond,
you go to prison and you pay your way out of prison as a deterrent.
But in Nigeria here, even the people who are supposed to regulate
the sector would turn the blind eye when certain transactions
happen under the table. Most of the time, you will notice that these
people are aided; they are even given official vehicles to move
around, with our security officials as guards.
To address the impunity, ensure that both the people saddled with
the responsibility to enforce the Minerals and Mining Act and the
people committing this impunity, bastardising our law, are arrested
and imprisoned. My proposal on these, based on the Minerals and
Mining Act, is to say that the president give a certain presidential
committee the powers. By the time you make scapegoats, people
will learn. Buhari has done it before, that is why we want him to do
it again.
When it comes to the issue of economic saboteur, they should not
be pity. It is against the law of the land. When you break the law,
you should face the music.
Ajaokuta is a victim of local saboteurs and international conspiracy
Let us talk about Ajaokuta Steel. It remains a sour spot. Over $7
billion injected was said to have been invested there, yet it is not
producing anything. What can we do to turn around the fortune of
the institution?
We have what I will call a connivance of saboteurs, which
comprises Nigerians with the international steel mining giants to
perpetually make Nigeria a dumping ground for their steel products
from their respective countries. So long as they have economic
benefits from such evil economic sabotage, they will continue doing
it and Ajaokuta will never develop. The survival, revival and
revamping of Ajaokuta Steel is hinged on just one word, patriotism.
When you put Nigeria before any personal consideration and you
start that today, by tomorrow, Ajaokuta will come back to life.
Ajaokuta, from every indication of what you have said, that about
$7 billion have been put into it. Ajaokuta is a community; it is a hub
of industrialization in Nigeria. Not only Ajaokuta, we also have the
rolling mills, which are one in each of the six geo-political zones
across the country. The six geopolitical zones have one rolling mill
each to make sure that the industrialization dream of the country is
realized.
Like I keep saying about the cabals and their booby traps, so long
as they are profiting from all of these impunities, Ajaokuta will never
see the light of day.
All we will be seeing is ‘give us money, we will concession it.’ They
will concession it and the beneficiaries, if we do technical audit
today and the nation is ready to bring to book everyone that is
involved in the cannibalization and asset stripping of Ajaokuta, you
will see that many heads will roll, both serving and those outside of
government, heads that have profited massively from the
destruction and pillages of Ajaokuta.
How do you think government can pick up the pieces and make
something out of it?
Like I told you, Ajaokuta will come up tomorrow, if today, someone
would put the nation first and would imbibe the spirit of patriotism
in the revival of Ajaokuta.
Remember that Ajaokuta has a company called the Itakpe Iron Ore
Company, which was supposed to be a buffer of raw materials
supply to run the complex and this is within the same area. The
infrastructure is virtually complete in the place. All the rail tracks,
everything, from the mines to the rolling mills to the plant, to the
factory. It is an integrated plant, they are all there. All you just need
to do is true patriotism.
I have recommended that all the major actors, wherever they are,
within or outside the country, are invited for a meeting. All the
ministers should be called to a meeting, lock up the door and table
before them the resolution of the problems of Ajaokuta Steel, by the
time the meeting is finished, the solution to Ajaokuta Steel will be
there already.
From Obasanjo to Yar’Adua/Jonathan, there have been several
attempts at privatizing the plant. Do you subscribe to the Federal
Government privatizing it, appoint a managing director to run it or
concession it to private investors?
Part of the problem we have is the Bureau of Public Enterprises,
BPE. The BPE, as far as solid minerals is concerned in the country,
they are a capital failure. Because there is virtually no single score
for them in terms of performance in the privatization in the solid
minerals sector.
I challenge the Director-General of the BPE to a debate before the
nation, to come and tell us which of them have been privatized
successfully. Many of them have litigations. Such litigations have
put the privatized institutions in limbo, they have become an
exhibit. The Aluminium Smelting Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, for
example is an exhibit; Ajaokuta is also an exhibit.
You are the owner of something you cannot take it because it is an
exhibit. They are taking you before the London court, international
and local courts, before their countries’ courts, and all that. And all
these are deliberate. It is to make sure that Nigeria remains a
dumping ground for all their mineral products.
They are pumping into the country, because they believe Nigerians
are stupid and careless people and also because they think we value
imported products more than those we produce in our own country.
This is our problem.
What difference can the modules you are propounding bring?
The modules are just to bring about a change, because a situation
where like in Zamfara where over 400 people died, that is the one
documented. I can tell you that it is happening on a daily basis, in
Plateau, anywhere there are mining activities going on, people are
being buried underground.
The module is to bring in professional operations; it is to harness
the theory and practice of mining. The module is to make the
government to only act as the regulator and the private sector as
the engine of growth.
Is that not the current situation?
That is not the current situation, unfortunately. We have a situation
where the ministry is going cap in hand, telling operators they want
to set up buying centres in the 774 local governments in the
country. You give them money and the money vanishes. You tell me
anywhere that any of the government buying centres has ever seen
the light of day, there is none.
In fact, most of them ended up in EFCC some years ago, because
they reported to the nation that they had built buying centres and it
was investigated and discovered that even the land was not their
own. Yet, they reported that it has been built and the money shared
among themselves. The case, I think is still lingering with the EFCC.
The module is to be able to stop all of these, bring in a sense of the
joy you derive from mining. Mining is an interesting venture. When
you see nature in its beauty and fancy, mining is involved. It is to be
able to attract the youths and interests into mining. By the time you
see organized mining, you would want to go into it.
It is also to be able to unleash the backward and upward
integrations associated with mining, where you have consultants
coming up, advocacy groups, NGOs on environment, on mining and
database companies springing up; where you have internet
operators trying to bring modules and shapes of different minerals
coming up. It is a holistic approach to mining development in the
country. Each of those modules is giving you a minimum standard
you must meet if you want to go into any area of mining, with
equipment back-up.
Can you readily tell us where we have gold in Nigeria?
We have gold in Edo state, Osun state, those are known places. We
have gold in Zamfara, Kaduna traditionally, in commercial quantity.
If it is not in commercial quantity, a permanent secretary would not
have told us that we are losing about $5 billion from that sector on
an annual basis.
Apart from gold, what other major solid minerals can you say are
low hanging fruits that we can easily tap into?
Easily, our traditional ones have been the base metals; the
cassiterite, which is the tin ore and the columbite. Our industrial
minerals like the limestone for cement, for possibly the construction
industry and also granite. These are all over the places. We also
have clay for pots, cups, gift items and all of that.
Instead of importing all our porcelain from China, we can do all of
these within a room with a simple machine. That is the essence of
the mining modules; it gives you standards on what have been
successfully practiced in other countries with solid minerals
resources and it is replicated here in the country.
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