Fayemi wants mining sector to contribute five per cent to GDP

Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has called on the stakeholders in the mining sector to work hard, for the sector to contribute at least five per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Along with the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, the governor called for stakeholders’ buy-in for the exploitation of the economic opportunities in the nation’s mining sector.

Speaking in Ado-Ekiti at the closing session of the third National Council on Mining and Mineral Resources Development (NCMMRD), the governor challenged the council to fashion out ways of making stakeholders in the sector to contribute their quota.

Theme of the three-day council meeting, which ended at the weekend, was ‘Nigeria Minerals and Metal Sector: Spectrum for Investment Opportunities for Economic Growth and Development.’

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said the solid minerals sector contributed N52.75 billion to federation revenue in 2017.

NEITI, in its latest report on Solid Mineral Sector released in Abuja yesterday, said the amount was a 21 per cent increase on the N43.22 billion contributed by the sector in 2016.

The report followed an audit on independent reconciliation of company payments and government receipts in the sector.

Amedu Onekpe & Co, an indigenous accounting and auditing firm, conducted the 2017 solid minerals audit for NEITI.

“From the sector’s total revenue contribution of N52.75 billion, payments to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) accounted for N49.162 billion, which is about 93 per cent of the total revenues realised during the period under review.