The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Mr Musa Sada, on Tuesday in Abuja called for a reliable and transparent mining cadastre system that would promote investment in the mining sector. The minister who spoke at the inauguration of the Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office Complex, said the system would provide the technical security for mining titles tenure.

“A reliable and transparent system represents an essential component for the promotion of investments in the sector. No serious investor comes to a country that has an opaque licensing system,” he said.

According to him, the mining sector has been poorly organised with an arbitrary licensing system until 2005 when it was reformed. He explained that before the reform, there was no access to reliable and representative information about the country’s licensing system.

“ There was a significant backlog of pending applications and several dormant mining titles were largely not compliant with the legal dispositions at the time. There existed gaps in the available topographic map sheets, hindering the graphical positioning of the mining titles,“ Sada noted. He disclosed that with the help of the World Bank, the mining office in Abuja was re-organised while the cadastre system for administration of mining titles had been computerised.

The minister added that the World Bank had also assisted with the training of staff and the strengthening of technical capacity, while the sector”s legal aspects were now in a sound position. “Since the reform took place, we can now generate data covering all mining titles and permits in the records of the ministry,” he said.

Sada said the cadastre office had now revalidated existing mineral titles, using modern scientific methods and the maintenance of a geo-metric and alpha-numeric data base of all mineral land applications. He said that since after the reforms, the mining cadastre office had received 11,777 applications out of which 7,550 had been granted. Speaking at the event, Onno Ruhl, World Bank’s Country Director for Nigeria, said that the reform had led to private investment in the sector and had contributed immensely in production value. He urged Nigeria to diversify its economy by sustaining the reform, improving legislation and ensuring policy consistency in the sector.

The World Bank official also urged Nigeria to improve the funding and budgetary aspects of the mining sector, while further lending support to small investors in the sector. Mohammed Amate , Director-General of the Mining Cadastre Office, disclosed that the success of the mining sector in any nation was determined by certain factors. “One major factor is the level of the presence of well-known small and big international companies,” he said.