Oscarline Onwuemenyi,
12 November 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja — The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, says the government and the private sector must share the responsibility of investing in key drivers of success in the mining sector such as the availability of access to public geosciences data that investors required.
He spoke at a workshop in Lagos, where he expressed concern over low investment in the mining sector, despite efforts to reform the sector and attract both local and foreign investments.
The minister also said that building a competitive mining value chain meant firms operating in Nigeria must compete on best quality, competitive cost, and global peers.
“Government and the private sector must share the responsibility of investing in key drivers of success such as the availability of access to public geosciences data that investors required.
“It would be remiss of us not to flag the quick and special support received from Ford Foundation towards better governance for improved natural resource management,” he said at the workshop on “Contemporary Community Engagement Models in the Oil and Gas Sector: Lessons for other Sectors” organised by the New Nigeria Foundation.
Fayemi stated that the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007, with globally competitive sector incentives, has been in place for up to a decade but the sector’s contributions to Gross Domestic Product, GDP, has remained less than ideal, accounting for a paltry sum of about 0.33 percent in 2015.
