Edo State Government has put in motion plans to bring forth a new narrative in the Solid Minerals sector of the state.
This much was revealed by Honourable Enaholo Ojiefoh, the Commissioner in charge of the Ministry of Mining and Energy in an interactive session with journalists in the conference room of the ministry on Tuesday morning.
Hon. Ojiefoh disclosed that to achieve its laudable ideals the government created three new units in the Ministry viz Investment, Research and Power.
He stated that the Ministry now has a data base of all investments, opportunities and stakeholders and every other thing about the Ministry which can be accessed with a simple click.
“At a click you will know what is happening in the Oil and Gas sector in the state. That means just at a click you can see all the filling stations you have in the state. The number of mining companies you have in the state. Everything that concerns the Ministry you just see it in our data base,” he disclosed adding that the project is almost 95 percent completed “we are just waiting for a few data to add it up so that we can launch the data base.”
Another project that the Ministry is passionate about as revealed by the Commissioner is the market report of all Solid Minerals and to address this he said that soon a weekly market report of the Solid Minerals would be made.
“We say let people know the market value of the minerals we have. Lets list out all the minerals that we have in this state and what are their prices. It is good for Edo people to know on a weekly basis how much these minerals are going for.
“The first of its kind in Nigeria. Edo State now have weekly market report on Solid Minerals. Every Monday before noon that market report would be released.”
Hon. Ojiefoh also disclosed that a stakeholders meeting has been set up for the mining sector he asserted that the meeting was an eye opener “we talked to them directly. We analysed the problems. We checked where the challenges were coming from and the area these people have been marginalised, the area of education.
“What they need to know about the set up especially in the area of signing consent forms for miners. We also addressed the area of burrow pit invasion, burrow pit fraud and inability for even the local communities to benefit from these minerals.”
On decay in some internal (state) roads, Ojiefoh said: “we discovered that a lot of the internal (state) roads were being destroyed by some mining companies. Instantly, we set up a solid mineral palliative committee which comprises of the quarry companies in that community, the local and state governments.
“Now, we are telling the quarry companies to support. We are going to redefine their CSR. One of their CSR is to make sure they supply us the raw materials like the stone, the granite to do palliatives on all the roads in that region(Edo North) and they all agreed.”
He stated that the solid mineral palliative committee will be holding its first meeting next week on how to start implementation.
“We are inviting all the local government heads(HOLGAS) to be with us next week, Tuesday to know the quantity of granite etc we need to repair those roads. The local governments can tell us the major roads, profile them for us. The companies are waiting for us.”
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