Senate to Revive Dead Assets Through Establishment of Solid Minerals Development Bank

Nigeria’s Red Chamber has decided to revive some of the dead assets through the establishment of solid minerals development bank.

The Financial Services Leader and Chief economist at PWC Nigeria, Andrew Nevin, while delivering his speech at the Nairametrics Economic Outlook webinar, themed, “Your Money, The Economy and Government Policies” said in other to stabilize the economy the Nigeria government’s infrastructure push should buoy activity through reviving dead assets that are not producing returns, and also focus on service export growth, as these are some of the factors that will shape Nigeria’s economy in the fiscal year 2022.

The bill which was first sponsored by Senator representing APC Kogi Central, Oseni Yakubu, on Tuesday, May 18, 2021, got a boost yesterday as it scaled through the second reading in the Senate plenary.

While presenting the lead debate of the general principles of the bill, Senator Yakubu explained that the idea behind establishing such a financial institution is to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development and boost the solid minerals sector by providing access to credit finance.

He also stated that the enactment of the bill would give the federal government a baseline to fall into outside the oil sector.

He noted that it will also endear people to invest in the sector in other to improve the quality of life of the people and satisfy the funding needs of the solid minerals sector in this country.

In his word, he claimed the bank will give succor to both medium and long-term lending, with a duration of up to 10 years and a moratorium of up to 18 months.

This was to give borrowers in the sector a longer period to repay the loans gotten from the Solid Minerals Development Bank, unlike the regular commercial institutions.

However, the senator representing, APC, Ogun State, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun while giving his word of support noted we will continue to operate on a monolithic economy in the country until the sectors proposed diversification were funded.

He further explained that in order to get the best technology that can be used to develop the mining sector, the government needs to fund it adequately.

He suggested that the establishment of the bank will help to checkmate challenges bedevilling the sector.

In his opinion, Sen. Yusuf Yusuf (APC-Taraba) stated that having a special bank to finance solid mineral development in Nigeria will help to diversify our economy as there are no commercial banks financing solid mineral development in Nigeria.

The bill was later passed to the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, Mines, Steel Development and Metallurgy to give a report in four weeks by Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege who presided over plenary.