With less than three years to the 2015 date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it remains a fact the goal of? the MDGs to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, is? far from being achieved? as poverty still remains in the land. Ruth Tene Natsa looks at solid minerals development as a means of achieving the MDGS.
The Irigwe Women Cooperative, which is one of the benefitting cooperatives of the Sustainable Management of Mineral Resource Project (SMMRP), tells the story of struggling women who seek to make a living crushing rocks manually, but with the help of the Project are now able to successfully obtain over 40 tons of crushed rock per day using a crusher and a generator which had jointly been purchased with their savings and a grant from the project.
The Irigwe women formed a cooperative and overtime saved some money to legalise their operations and obtained a grant from the World Bank. This and many others are the success stories of the solid minerals sector with regard to poverty alleviation.
The National President, Association of Dimension Stone Operators, Kabir Hamayaji Umar, in an interview with LEADERSHIP said; “The potentials in the industry are greater than those in any other sector in Nigeria. If more attention is given by government in promoting an enabling environment in mining, the future will be brilliant.”
The solid mineral sector, though long ignored by the federal government, is a vast sector with very rich opportunities because it is a sector that has interest and presence in every state of the federation with the availability of two or more solid minerals in every state, including the federal capital.
It is necessary that the federal government harnesses every opportunity if it really has the plan? to achieve the goal one of the MDGs which is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. It is believed that its achievement would make it easier to achieve goals 2 to? 8 which are, achieving universal primary education, promoting? gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, ?as well as developing? a global partnership for development
With poverty and hunger said to be on the increase despite the developments in other sectors of the economy, one can say all hope is not lost as goal one is achievable through the development of the solid minerals sector as a means to eradicating poverty, creating jobs and increasing the revenue of the nation’s economy.
This was further confirmed when it was revealed that the mining sector contributed N1.4 billion to government’s revenue in 2011 through improved revenue collection engendered by the Sustainable Management of Mineral Resource? project (SMMRP) and the present government’s efforts to create alternative source of funding, as well as an alternative to Nigeria’s dependence on oil.
In an address by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development,Mohammed Sada, at the end of the project stakeholders workshop held in Abuja recently, he said; “The various activities to develop the sub-sector, the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM), had led to increase in employments with over 30,000 jobs created by the formalisation of over 600 cooperatives.”
He also said that in 2005, the sector generated 215.5 million for the Federal Government, but with reforms and capacity building by the SMMRP to strengthen governance in the mining sector, the sector generated N1.4 billion in 2011.
With the organisation of miners into cooperatives, it has a double edged advantage which serves as a platform to legalise mining as well as create a positive and legal forum where government could relate with miners, thereby increasing revenue for both the government and miners.
He stated that over 60 per cent of the beneficiaries of the micro-grant scheme had experienced quantum leaps in terms of production, sales and profit, thereby leading to better socio-economic livelihoods.
In September 2009, during a meeting of the Presidential Committee on the MDGs to appraise the country performance and capacity in achieving the MDGs, it was submitted that three of the MDGs were realisable by 2015 and they included universal primary education, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The committee stated that one of the areas which remained to be improved on was? the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger which remained a cardinal need as poverty level remains high with the number of poor people on the increase as a result of high level of official corruption, wastage and insecurity.
While this remains a most alarming factor, the development of the solid minerals sector to ensure, organise and make safe mining would be a dynamic platform to ensure that illegal mining activities which are undertaken by miners would be curtailed while creating employment for them at the same time.
Sada, in his speech said the SMMR project was closing at a wrong time in that government was not ready for the closure as the World Bank intervention needed to continue till the time when government would be in a position to take over and build projects.
He therefore called for a continuation of the phase 11 of the project to enable interventions in some critical areas in pursuit of solid minerals development as a stop-gap to keep momentum and forestall collapse of the lofty achievements of the SMMRP
In commending the achievements of the SMMRP, Sada gave the assurance that the project had been able to succeed in carrying out the following activities: legal and regulatory framework, administration of mineral titles, geological information gathering for investment and national planning, establishing the Nigerian Institute of Mining and Geosciences (NIMG), training and capacity building contents.
Other achievements include provision of field vehicles, civil works and technical equipment for the ministry and its agencies, development of selected minerals for import substitution and provision of livelihood for mining communities, as well as the administration of small grant sub-project programmes, among several other achievements.
While these achievements are on ground, it remains a mind boggling issue that if the government is not able to sustain the developmental projects started by the World Bank, lack of investment in the sector could become a clog in the wheels of achieving the MDGs in 2015.
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