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The
Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Musa Mohammed Sada,
has said that the development of the mining sector would
help in realising the vision 20;2020 by 2015.
The minister who was
speaking at the official commissioning of the Nigeria Mining
Cadastre office complex in Abuja yesterday, said that the
ministry had delivered on all its promises and asserted that
a sustainable foundation had been provided by government for
the rapid development of the mining sector in Nigeria.
According to Sada” the
impact of reforms was noticed in the industry as the
contributions to the federal accounts and exports had
increased by double digits” while assuring that “the future
of mining in Nigeria was very bright”.
He maintained that “the
establishment of a well organised, uniform and interactive
cadastral system had been a priority objective of the
mineral development policy of government.” He also informed
that “a reliable and transparent mining cadastre system
represented an essential component for the promotion of
investments in the minerals sector as it provides the
technical security for mining titles tenure,” emphasising
that “no serious investor goes into a country with an opaque
licencing system.”
Sada further asserted that
prior to the reforms in 2005, the Cadastre system was poorly
organised with an arbitrary licencing system which
manifested lack of accurate and representative statistical
data, a significant backlog of pending applications and
several dormant mining titles which were largely not
compliant with the legal dispositions as well as gaps in the
available topographic map sheets which hindered the
graphical positioning of the mining titles.
As a result of this, the
reformed Cadastre system which was derived from the Minerals
and Mining Act of 2007 he said, promotes access to mineral
titles which is open to all investors on a level and
equitable field, on a first come, first serve basis. It also
guarantees security of mineral rights, the application of
use it or lose it principle in mineral title application,
provision for sound environmental controls and community
developments agreements as well as the involvement of other
stakeholders and the introduction of minimum work programme
among others.
The minister maintained that
since the creation of the Mining Cadastre office in 2005,
the office had successfully generated a database which
covered all mining titles and permits in the record of the
ministry, hosted a stakeholders’ workshop on the new mining
licence administration system, revalidated existing mineral
titles using modern and scientific methods, digitalisation
of analogue topographic sheets and the computerisation of
system in collaboration with a German-based firm , Messrs
GAF.
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