By JONAH NWOKPOKU

The Federal Government will soon start revoking the mining licences of companies that engage in speculations rather than use their mining permits for the purpose for which they were given.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Mr. Linus Awute, disclosed this in Lagos in an exclusive interview with Vanguard at the sideline of an interactive session with members of the Dredged Stockpilers Association of Lagos State.

“The only condition upon which one will find illegal activities taking place anywhere is only because the custodian of that place who is believed to be the rightful owner of that mineral title does not ensure that the licence is used for the purpose for which it is acquired.

So from now on, those who hold mining licences, who are doing nothing, who are speculating, will have their mining licences revoked. So we are carrying out a study that is going to give us an idea of the dimension of such illegality and then we profile that properly and then take a decision on them,” he said.

Awute who represented the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Hon. Muhammed Musa Sada, at the interactive session, noted that government’s poor regulation of the sector has resulted to illegal activities in the mining sector and an increase in the activities of the speculators especially in sand dredging.

He further noted that the ministry is advocating for a concept of Community Development Agreement, CDA, between the operators and the community where the mineral resources are located. This he noted was to ensure that all parties involved in the mineral exploitation benefit in the process.

“We have every right by the constitution of Federal Government of Nigeria to allocate mineral mining areas, to give mineral titles to any willing Nigerian but for the sake of sustainable development which expects us to ensure that there is ecological appreciation in whatever anybody is going to undertake.

“To ensure that the interest of the community is also appreciated, we came up with the concept of CDA, which shall be between the business operator and the community. The concept will also advocate certain things that somebody must do for a community,” he stated.

Responding on behalf of the dredgers association, Mr. Ayo Odunlami while commending the ministry for the reforms it is undertaking in the sector, lamented the difficulties faced by members of the association arising from huge size of mining rights acquired by an individual who does not have the capacity to cover such areas.

“For us to operate in this business, we needed and obtained what is called cadastral permit from the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development. After that, we went into operation, only to find one man (names withheld) sending us letters through lawyers, that we are encroaching on his cadastral.

And we didn’t find that possible because the federal ministry had issued the license to us. However we went to make enquiries about this at the federal ministry and they admitted that they issued license to that person but at an unimaginable expanse covering about 32 kilometers,” he explained.