2,119 Mining Companies Owe N2.76bn Service Fees

According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, 2,119 companies operating in the country’s solid minerals industry were indebted to the federation to the tune of over N2.76billion.

NEITI disclosed this in its latest report of the mining sector for the year 2020, noting that Nigeria earned N624.45bn from the industry in 13 years.

The agency stated that the companies’ liabilities resulted from failure on the part of the 2,119 firms to pay statutory annual service fees for various mineral titles.

It said 6,010 existing solid mineral titles were valid as of December 31, 2020, while 7,605 mining titles were issued in the industry in the past five years.

The NEITI report, which was presented multi-stakeholders in Abuja by the agency’s Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonnaya-Orji, indicated that the total revenue contributions from the sector in 2020 rose to N128.27bn, an increase of over 54 per cent from the N74.85bn recorded in 2019 despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NEITI report also revealed that the sum of N8.89bn was shared among the federating units as solid minerals revenue in 2020.

A breakdown of the figure showed that the Federal Government received N4.07bn (45.83 per cent), states and Local Governments received N2.07bn and N1.59bn (23.25 per cent; 17.92 per cent) respectively,  while N1.16bn (13 per cent) was recorded as derivation share.

The NEITI Independent Solid Minerals Industry Report tracked and reconciled financial flows in the sector, checked quantities of minerals produced, utilised and exported in 2020. It also examined the governance and process issues in the sector, outlined key findings and made recommendations that required urgent remedies.