The Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development (MMSD) has set a revenue target of N20bn for the 2020 fiscal year.
The Minister, Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite made disclosed on Tuesday at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja while receiving the draft report of the Revenue Optimization Committee of the Ministry he set up earlier, headed by the Minister of States for Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah.
Adegbite expressed the readiness of the ministry to actualise its key focuses anchored on creation of employment and boosting the nation’s revenue base.
“We pray and hope that by the end of this year, we can see a quantum leap from what we made last year, a shift from about N5 billion improvement over the past, which is the highest so far but I don’t want this incremental anymore. Let’s hope we can increase to N20 billion by the end of 2020. That will be like four times what we did last year. That will be a quantum leap and it is possible” he said.
The Minister decried the poor revenue generation by federal mines offices in various states, wondering why Lagos with huge sand dredging activities for construction work going on there only remits N30m annually.
While insisting that there is under remittance of funds due to the federal government through mines, he vowed to take a drastic step that will reposition Federal Mines Offices for optimum performance.
The Minister while expressing gratitude to the committee for a job well done, said the ministry will study and execute the recommendations contained in the report of the revenue optimisation committee.
Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah thanked the minister for giving his committee the needed support to accomplish its assignment.
According to him, the overall objective of setting up the committee inaugurated November 2019 was to develop strategies, the implementation of which will lead to optimisation of the revenue generated from the minerals sector.
Ogah committee recommended that the Ministry should intensify collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and its relevant agencies and introduce a pre-shipment inspection and issuance of Clean Certificate of Inspection (CCI) by an appointed agent on all mineral commodities due to export in line with the provisions of the Pre-shipment Inspection Export Act.
Other recommendations include strengthening the capacity of Mines Inspectorate Department to employ more mining engineers for effective monitoring of mineral production, operation; acquisition of modern engineering tools; and use of engineering techniques in assessing mineral productions of Mines and quarries in order to ensure optimal revenue collection.
