The House of Representatives on Thursday said the Miners Association of Nigeria needed serious intervention for the country to benefit from other sectors of the economy apart from oil and gas.
Rep. Adams Jagaba (Kaduna-APC) who represented the Chairman, House Committee on Solid Minerals Development, Rep. Datti Garba, advised the association to find out available funds in the relevant agencies and report back to the committee to enable it to do a follow up in accessing fund for its members.
“Do a little research and come for an interactive session for the committee to be well informed and assist the association in getting funds. If there is any legislation we are going to do to ease the accessibility of the fund or sponsor a bill, we will do that,” he said.
Rep. Henry Nwawuba (Imo-PDP) said that “we will be looking at you in developing the road map; maybe there is an existing road map. When next we sit with you, we should be able to know that we have stopped the importation of barite.
”As legislators we can give you legislative solutions, we can back it up law we can enforce during oversight. A lot unfortunately is still going to come from you,” he said.
He said that NEXIM bank had 450 million dollars and only two miners were able to access the loan to the point that they almost returned the fund. He added that Nigeria had miners association who needed to access the fund.
Alhaji Sani Shehu, President of the association, urged the government to invest in mining for the economic benefit of the country.
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