Director general of the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO), Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Obadiah Nkom, has hinted that the agency has received about 55,118 applications for mineral titles since the introduction of electronic mining cadastre system plus (EMCS+) strategy.
He said with this feat in 16 months, NMCO would continue to work hard for robust applications for mineral titles and modifications in the country.
The DG spoke at a sensitisation workshop on the adoption of EMCS+ by the mining sector stakeholders at the 59th Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS) Annual International Conference and Exhibition (AICE) held at National Museum and Liaison Office, Jos.
He said mining cadastre is about administration and management of mineral titles all over the country.
Nkom said, “We are talking of no other country than Nigeria and looking at the mining and giving birth to the new system which earlier on had been an internet system in a layman point of view, is computerised and not web-based.
“Now we have an electronic mining cadastral system which is almost 16 months old. And the essence is to be able to now give more services, make it more interactive.
The web based tends to allow stakeholders to have access and be able to now see the system the way it seems.”
On what the mining cadastre is doing to ensure they reduce or eliminate illegal mining bedeviling the sector, the DG posits that they are doing everything to ensure that everybody has a license before going into mining.
According to him, “but I can tell you that the sector is being organized and there is no level of organization that you can have and say it’s 100 percent. We will continue to work towards perfection.
“We have to be able to work to ensure that at the end of the day, most of the activities that we have now are artisanal activities of artisanal. And we have artisanal license, small scale license.
“And there’s another department in the ministry called the Artisanal and Small Scale department. The essence of that department is to be able to organize this artisanal cooperative and give them extension services.”
