By ABAH ADAH
The Senate has expressed satisfaction with the revenue performance of the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO) even as it emphasises the need for closer collaboration between the two sides to ramp up the gains and drive the reforms of the current administration in the sector aimed at diversifying and developing the economy.
This follows a presentation made by the Director General of the MCO, Engr Obadiah Simon Nkom, while hosting the members of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, led by the Chairman, Senator Sampson Ekong, on an oversight visit to his office in Abuja on Monday. which showed that there has been a steady rise in the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the agency over the years.
According to a chart which showed yearly increase in the agency’s revenues remitted to the federal government’s cofas from inception in 2006, the MCO has raked in N8,199,976,300.00 from January to October 2024, surpassing the 6,071,263,461.00 remitted for 2023 by over 2 billions.
Speaking, the committee Chairman, Sen. Ekong, who commended the MCO’s management and the entire staff, said, “The sector can only be truly developed through this type of partnership. No one alone can develop this sector, drive the type of reforms that we need to catapult us to where we should be as a hugely endowed country.”
Expressing the readiness of the upper arm of the National Assembly (NASS) to support the agency which he described as the engine room of the sector, Sen. Ekong noted the concerns raised about the numerous challenges bedeviling it’s smooth operation, assuring that necessary legislative steps would be taking to address them.
One of the issues that attracted the attention of the lawmakers most was the issue of zero release of capital appropriation, put at over N550 million, to the agency, which the Senators said is unacceptable and would be looked into.
The NMCO boss however said that though situation is critical, he and his team are trying their best to go around it to ensure that the mandate of the sector is achieved.
According to him, the surge in revenue reflects the country’s strengthened commitment to diversifying its economy through the solid minerals sector and improving its mining regulatory framework.
He noted that the secret of the agency’s success story hinges on the principles of transparency and accountability which it upholds, hinting that the agency works hand-in-hand with the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in pursuit of that.
Briefing the visiting law makers on structural and operational models of the organisation, Engr Nkom, also said that everything is done by the agency in complete compliance with the law to ensure that people who genuinely apply for license are not given extra-judicial treated, adding that cases with aggrieved applicants in court were won by the agency 100 per cent.
He assured them that everything was being done at the MCO and at the ministry level to sanitise the sector for progress, noting that the essence of the review being periodically done in the system is drive away speculators and transactional applicant, while paving way for only the real intending miners acquire license.
He also informed the Senators the agency has migrated online courtesy of its electronic Mining Cadastre System (eMC+), where people from all over the world can apply for license at any time and have their application processed real time.
