The Federal Government would understudy the Australian mining sector in
the bid to reposition the country’s solid mineral sector, the Minister of
Solid Minerals Development, Kayode Fayemi, has said.
The government will also be learning how the Australian government has
been able to achieve synergy between communities, states and the
government in resolving the recurrent conflicts between communities and
miners and settling the royalties due to states.
Mr. Fayemi said Nigeria needs to learn how Australia has been able to
drive its country’s mining sector, which accounts for 8.5 per cent of the
country’s GDP and employs about two per cent of the work force as the
present administration is set to improve the nation’s economy through the
sector.
Speaking in Abuja during a courtesy visit by the Australian High
Commissioner to Nigeria, Jonathan Richardson, to his office on Friday,
Mr. Fayemi said the increasing interest of the government is geared
towards understanding the Australian mining sector and coming up with an
approach that will be profitable to Nigeria.
He said: “We need to learn how you have been able to particularly drive the Australian mining industry.
The president is really very focused in
this sector; not that we have choices anyway with the prices for petrol
dollar dwindling, so we have to look at alternatives for raising revenue
for the country and clearly for the president, agriculture and solid
minerals appear to be the most realistic or fastest way to begin to raise
additional revenue for the economy.
“The increasing interest of our government has made me get in touch and
connect with what you are doing in your mining sector.
Everything I have
heard in the last 10 days of being in this position points in the
direction of Australia.
Everybody is saying it to me factually, technically, commercially, I keep
hearing, you get Australia, you fix the mining sector.
“Another area that we really can learn from Australia is you are a
federal entity like us, we do have significant tension between what the
constitution says about mineral resources belonging exclusively to the
federal authority and the management of land belonging to the state
government.
So, we need to find a sharing formula mechanism, what royalties comes to
those who own the land, the community, state government and then the
federal in other to achieve synergy and corporation because increasingly,
I am hearing stories of those trying to explore minerals from local
communities and facing a number of challenges there. We will be
interested to know what Australia has done about it.”
Earlier, the Australian High Commissioner, said that his country would
like to cooperate with Nigeria in the areas of technical training and
support as well as other areas the government might require.
He added that over 100 Nigerians had taken advantage of short
professional courses in specialized areas in Australia since 2010.
Mr. Richardson, who stressed that Nigeria is well endowed with mineral
resources, stated that security, rule of law, law enforcement, policy
consistency as well as cheaper and reliable power supply would play
significant roles in building and sustaining investors confidence in the
Nigerian mining sector.
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