Miners to Get Licence in 15 Days

• Miners to Get Licence in 15 Days

The Federal Government has announced its plan to cut down the time taken to process mining licence from 45 days to 15 days.

Bwari Abubakar, the Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, made the disclosure during the Nigeria Mining Business Investment Summit in Lagos on Tuesday.

According to the minister, who was represented by his Special Assistant on Technical Matters, Henry Davies, said the ministry has introduced an online application platform and build a modern archiving system to facilitate the dissemination of high-quality pre-competitive geodata information.

Bweri said the automation of the Cadastre office would cut down processing time and enhance the efficiency of the ministry.

He added that the ministry is developing new Mineral Export Guidelines to ensure accurate data on mineral exports and to reduce mineral export permit from two weeks to two days.

He said the ministry is constantly improving and expanding its database to de-risk the mining jurisdiction and make the nation’s potential more appealing to investors.

In addition to awarding a mining exploration contract of $50 million to some companies, the federal government recently obtained a 25,000 line KM electromagnetic data over three blocks, he said.

He disclosed further that the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency had undertaken additional ground investigations to upgrade the nation’s mineral database to a level that could easily attract financial investment.

This is being carried out in collaboration with countries whose advanced mining jurisdictions could assist Nigeria in geochemical mapping and remote sensing, aero-geophysical survey, geo-database construction and geo-information sharing, he added.