The Senate has asked the Federal Government to investigate the alleged annual revenue loss of $9billion to illegal mining and smuggling of gold in Nigeria.
The upper legislative chamber also urged the government to further intensify efforts at combating illegal mining and block all revenue leakages as well as establish gold mining farms to assist artisans and miners.
The Senate stated this in its resolutions after considering a motion sponsored by the Senate chief whip and former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu during plenary on Wednesday.
It also mandated its committee on solid minerals, mines, steel development and metallurgy to investigate all illegal mining and revenue leakages associated with the activities.
Kalu, while presenting the motion, noted that “Nigeria lost close to $54billion from 20122018 to illegal smuggling of gold.
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“The country is said to be losing about $9 billion yearly to illegal mining and gold exportation, a huge amount of money unaccounted for through under the radar sales of the expensive commodity.”
“The activities of unlicensed miners are becoming prevalent within the industry and the incessant smuggling of solid minerals out of the country by middlemen and smugglers, is leading to loss of government revenue,” he said.
According to him, gold mining operations in the country is capable of providing over 250, 000 jobs and over $500 million annually in royalties and taxes to the federal government and as mineral resources.
This, he explained, would further help in diversifying the nation’s economy and improve its foreign exchange reserve.
“Given our current estimated gold reserves of over 200 million ounces, most of which have not been exploited, developing sustainable programmes that will catalyse increased investment in the extraction and refining of gold sourced from mines in Nigeria, is indeed vital,” he added.
While quoting data from the Ministry of Solid Minerals and Steel Development on gold deposits in Abuja, Abia, Bauchi, Cross River, Edo, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Oyo, Kogi, Zamfara, Osun and Kaduna, he said that Section 44(3) of the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Law of 1999 provides that ownership and control of all minerals is vested in the Federal Government, which is mandated to manage such natural resources in a manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, the Senate has begun the legislative process towards the establishment of the Institute of Information and Communication Technology in Uga, Anambra State.
A bill to that effect sponsored by Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP – Anambra South), passed second reading on Wednesday.
In his lead debate, Ubah said: “The institute, when established will carry out scientific and applied research in the area of modern information technology application to optimize processes and decision support systems.”
Technology allows many businesses to expand more quickly by having the proper means to promote. It is trending now that all businesses have social network websites that would enable service delivery and giving updates to their customers.
“ICT is the trending best practice the world over, and an institute specially designated for this purpose should be a welcome development,” he added.
