World Bank Urges Reliable Funding For Mining

He advised that since the understanding in the sector is supposed to be a public, private partnership, there must also be a reliable funding base.

Ruhl, who spoke at the official inauguration of the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) in Abuja, also said :”progress will be made on the operationalisation of the access to the Sustainable Minerals Fund as well as the Natural Resource Development Fund.”

He noted that those Funds are there in theory, although they need to make funds accessible to investors.

Ruhl advised that the country earmarks capital budget for mining and desist from providing recurrent budget for the sector.

”The ministry needs a reliable budget not just a recurrent budget but a capital budget especially,” he said.

The World Bank Country Director, who was commenting on how the country can distinguish herself in the sector, also said: “now that the mining law and mining cadastre office are in place, the Nigeria Geological Survey Agency is on, the government has declared the country opened for business the main job of President Jonathan is to ensure stability of policy, stability of legislation, stability of regulation, consistency and reliability in the applications that would make the difference.”

In his overview of the mining reforms in Nigeria, he estimated production value increased from $35million in 2005 to $135million in 2009.

He said the first large scale gold mine in the country is to be operational in Osun between this year and 2012.