The federal government has revoked an additional 924 dormant mineral licences with immediate effect.
According to Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, the affected titles include five hundred and twenty eight exploration licences, twenty mining leases, one hundred and one quarry licences, and two hundred and seventy three small-scale mining licences.
Speaking during the briefing on Wednesday, Alake lamented the high rate of licence racketeering, as well as dormant mineral licences, which he assured of the ministry’s unrelenting effort to get into the root cause, and correct the lapses.
”The notice gave all concerned parties 30 days to regularise their status, including clarifications on what caused the license to be dormant. Thus, although a total of 963 licensees were published and notified of the threat of revocation, no fewer that 39 either moved to site immediately or convinced the authorities of the challenges hindering their operations”, the minister said.
He added that the ministry had formulated a policy to enable those whose licences have been revoked and are interested in reinstating such licences back into the system.
For mining licences reinstatement, Alake fixed the fine for large-scale companies at ten million naira , while small-scale mining licences were put at seven point five million naira , and exploration licences were put at five million naira respectively.
The minister further gave 30 days for interested parties to come up to the ministry through the mining cadastral office or risk losing their licences.
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