As part of the drive to harness the vast revenue potentials in the solid minerals and mining sector of the economy, the Revenue Mobilizations Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has embarked on national wide monitoring exercises on revenue collection from the Nigeria mining sector.
This was made known in Lokoja on Monday during RMAFC strategic meeting with officials of Kogi state government and stakeholders in the mine sector in the state.
The strategic meeting was flagged off by Governor Yahaya Bello, who was represented by the Deputy Governor of the state, Dr. Edward Onoja.
In his opening speech, the leader of the team to Kogi state and representative of the Chairman of the commission, Hon Abdullazeez Idris King said that the meeting is in line with the phase two of the nationwide monitoring of revenue collections and the activities of miners at the state and local government councils.
Hon Idris King, a Federal commissioner from the commission, noted that pursuant of the mandate of the Revenue Mobilizations Allocation and Fiscal Commission, they had earlier in 2016 conducted a nation wide exercise in collaboration with the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development along with other key stakeholders to access the challenges hindering optimum revenue collection from the sector.
And as a follow up on the 2016 exercise, the commission is again conducting another exercise to dialogue with stakeholders on the findings of the 2016 exercise with the bid to come up with recommendations and solutions to the observed challenges.
Hon Idris King noted that the ongoing exercise is to enable the commission to follow up, verify and reconcile, revenue collections in the mining sector.
He disclosed that the second phase of the meeting with strategic stakeholders currently going on in Kogi State is aimed at robust dialogue on the findings made in the first phase of the nation wide exercise to develop on the nationwide monitoring exercise on royalty collections and activities of miners in the solid minerals sector.
The Federal commissioner also stated that the meeting would culminate in the visitation to selected mining companies head office to verify and reconcile the established liabilities in respect of royalty and annual surface fees and any other as reported by NEITI as well as to obtain if any demands notice issued by the FMO/MCO along with evidence of payment in respect of the aforementioned revenue elements.
