By Business A.M.
The federal government has said it has introduced biometric data capturing for all registered artisanal and small-scale miners across the country under the formalisation and mainstreaming of artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) operators to curb incessant illegalities that have fraught the subsector in Nigeria
Olamilekan Adegbite,the minister of mines and steel development, made the disclosure in his keynote address at the commissioning of the Gold Processing Plant Mopa, Kogi State.
According to Adegbite, the informal trading of unprocessed gold and other metals, leads to capital flights and job losses.
He, therefore, explained that the data capturing is in a bid to develop the downstream sector mining industry to improve product pricing, create jobs, improve revenue generation and attract foreign markets to Nigeria.
The minister also noted that the government is presently creating an ecosystem to minimize the high rate of illegal mining and smuggling, increase revenue from the resource, create jobs, and improve environmental and social stewardship.
He also stated that the ministry under his leadership and Gbemisola Saraki, the minister of state for mines and steel development, as a matter of strategy, prioritized the ASM to stem incessant illegalities that have fraught the subsector in Nigeria by initiating and supporting biometric data capturing of all registered artisanal and small-scale miners across the country under the formalisation and mainstreaming of ASM operators.
The minister further appreciated the worthy efforts of notable development partners without whose contributions, the laudable achievement would not have been possible.
In his words: “The choice of Mopa as a location for the gold processing plant is predicated on its central position on the Schist Belt which trends from the northwest through western Kogi State to southwest Nigeria. The Nigerian Schist Belt is known to host rich deposits of gold. With the location of the gold processing plant in Mopa, artisanal and small-scale gold operators within the Schist Belt states can easily have access to the plant for their gold processing and refining.”
