By: Amadi Vincent Uzoma
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, says the ministry is determined to guarantee the sector’s commitment to the net domestic product (GDP) outperforms that of oil.
In an interview on Sunday, he said President Bola Tinubu’s administration was putting policies and activities in put to broaden the economy and ensure that it creates more income than oil in the near future.
“Our objective is to make solid minerals’ contribution to the GDP surpass oil,” said Mr Alake, who decried the country’s long dependence on oil and neglect of other critical sectors.
Mr Alake said the move was fundamental, particularly given the global upsurge in energy transition, which would diminish the request for oil.
“By the time all our policy initiatives go through the gestation period and begin to manifest results, the revenue accruing to Nigeria from this sector would be enormous.
“We are going to recover trillions to the coffers of the Nigerian government and for the benefit of Nigerians at large,” he said.
He said Nigeria has the basic minerals in commercial amounts over its states required for vitality move, which the service was forcefully showcasing to pull in enormous players to contribute within the division.
According to him, negotiations with an auditing firm are continuous to review the segment, pointing at sanitizing it and guaranteeing suitable collections to boost the country’s GDP.
“We know that operators will under-declare what they are carting away, even the payment of royalties, which they underpay, and taxes they evade.
“So we are in the process of engaging an internationally recognized auditing firm that has done the same thing in other parts of the world in more than 20 countries.
“We are going to recover trillions to the coffers of the Nigerian government and for the benefit of Nigerians at large,” he said.
The minister said a German company, Geo Scan, conducted a preliminary overview demonstrating that Nigeria has $750 billion worth of underground strong minerals that have however to be saddled.
