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Dolapo Osinbajo, the Wife of the Vice President of the Vice President has urged artisinal small scale miners In the country to expand their trade horizon by establishing a proper linkage with global markets.
Osinbajo said match-making artisinal small scale miners with their global peers and established industries would ensure proper linkage while also promoting a symbiotic relationship that forestalls laundering and exploitation of Nigeria’s mineral resources.
“The seminar must focus on key questions,which is how do we attract more growth in the mining sector,and create more wealth for our artisinal small scale miners?.The target of this exhibition and Seminar is to ensure a win win situation for our artisinal small scale miners to raise the bar of their practice”Osinbajo said on Thursday in Abuja at African Gems and Jewelry Exhibition and Seminar which has the theme:’Mines to Markets’
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According to the Osinbajo,”The key questions is how do we ensure sustainability of the solutions we found here.How can we grow different stages of the mining practice? From Mines to markets. How can we use this a social tool to crack down poverty and increase empowerment of our people,these are questions that we must get answers from our discussions and Seminar today”
Speaking earlier,Kayode Fayemi,the Minister of Mines and Steel Development said in spite of the huge potentials in gemstone mining, phenomenal loss of revenue and damage to the environment remain major causes of concern.
“This is due to the uniqueness of the occurrence of gem deposits and the quantity to value per quantity advantage of gemstones which make illegal activities and smuggling rampant, thus the inability of the sector to deliver on expected economic outcomes.”Fayemi lamented.
Fayemi also recalled that, “In past years, the gemstone sector had largely been a vehicle for money laundering, with the average dollar value of Nigerian gems exported put at over $3 billion dollars annually. The local mining industry for gems remained at its primitive level of shovel and digger and Nigeria’s vast untapped gemstone resource was not being optimally exploited for the benefit of Nigerians.
The goal of our reforms in this segment of the mining industry has been to ensure proper organisation of the gemstone sector from prospecting, to exploration, to mining, processing and marketing of gemstones in Nigeria; with emphasis on regularising the activities of the artisans who mostly engage in it”Fayemi said.
Fayemi notes that apart from the reforms in the mining sector,a new partnership has been forged with the Ministry of Interior and the Nigeria Police Force to establish the Mining Police as provisioned in the law,which he said has led to a number of high profile arrests of expatriate illegal miners and their Nigerian conspirators.
HARRISON EDEH, ABUJA
