Nigeria To End Export Of Raw Minerals

The Federal Gov­ernment says it would end the export of raw minerals at the expiration of its 18 months’ notice.

Speaking on the second day of the 6th edition of the Sustainabili­ty in the Extractive Industries (SIT­EI) conference in Abuja yesterday, the Minister of Mines and Steel De­velopment, Dr. Kayode Fayemi said government would come down heavily on those who try to flout the policy.

Dr. Kayode Fayemi  who spoke on theme: “Operationalizing the framework for globalizing our local economy,” revealed that the ministry would be working with the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to achieve the objective.

The Minister expressed optimism that the policy would encourage local pro­cessing of minerals, with govern­ment now ready to assist companies involved in minerals beneficiation with processing plants.

Fayemi said:  “Even the min­eral types that are available in Nige­ria, people prefer to just take them out raw and they lose a lot of mon­ey. Government is not in the busi­ness of buying but we are in the business of discouraging raw ex­portation of Nigeria raw mineral types. And we are working with Customs on this. We are also en­couraging many of our companies giving them 18 months before we start coming down heavily against them. That 18 months ends by 12 months’ time since we made that pronouncement”.

According to Fayemi,  government “do not take kindly raw exportation of our minerals because it be pro­cessed, beneficiated, and there are companies that are adding val­ues now to what the produce. We need to also work with them or we need to support those who need lifting up to put in place processing plants, beneficiating plants.”

The minister therefore called for the re­moval of investment barriers that discourage global players from the country’s mining sector.

He explained that the Feder­al Government issues mining license to investors in the sector, while state government are responsible for the issuance of Certificate of Occupancy (CoC) for the same piece of land and in most cases prevent the investors from operating in the field.