Officials aid illegal miners to defraud federal government of billions of naira – Achu
By Akpan David, Calabar
It has been alleged that the federal government of Nigeria is losing staggering revenues running into billions of naira through activities of illegal miners in many parts of the country, particularly Cross River State.
A key official of the Cross River State Mining Association who is a licensed mining, exploration and solid mineral development expert, Fidelis Achu in an exclusive interview alleged that there is collusion of federal mining and state government officials with illegal miners, which reason there has been preponderance of illegal mining activities in the state and beyond.
“Federal government is losing Millions of Naira every week as a result of illegal mining in Cross River State alone. This is because the federal officials whose job it is to constantly undertake checks at mining sites around the country whether those doing mining have requisite licenses to do so or whether they have veered to mine certain minerals instead of actually exploring as licensed, whether they are actually mining at where they were authorized to mine, or how are they going about their activities..”
He disclosed that there are as many as 300 miners both licensed and others who are involved in mining precious stones scattered all over Akamkpa, Ikom, Yala, Biase, Bekwara and few other LGAs of the state, adding that these miners do not have known addresses.
He raised alarm that more than 90% of these miners have evaded payments of taxes and importantly royalties to federal government, from where 13% derivation refunds would have accrued to the state where the resources have been tapped.
Achu calculated that “if one mined 2000 tons of iron ore in a month, for instance, and return N600,000 to federal government as royalty, and if the 300 of them similarly return, the total would be substantial. Similarly, the 13% derivation to the state could help to offset many bills, yet all these are carted away with impunity and our government pretends not to know..”
Achu also disclosed, “I can authoritatively mention that there 150 holders of Exploration Licences who have since left what they were licensed to do to mine arrays of precious stones in the state. There are two particular non indigenous firms that have commandeered the whole of Biase LGA discovered to have abundant of assorted precious stones. They don’t licences but have blocked state and federal officials from accessing their pits.
According to him, most of these illegal miners have employed services of state security apparatuses to secure them as they plunder even protected areas such as the Cross River National Park and other restricted places to protect them as they engage in the illegalities.
He alleged that others have armed local militias who have invaded host communities and intimidate locals in order that they will not discharge the expected Corporate Social Responsibility, (CSR), enshrined in Mining and other Acts.
Corroborating, Conservator of the Cross River National Park, Caroline Olory confirmed that there are many illegal mining activities which have plundered the Park in recent times, and exposed host communities to serious health and security dangers.
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