Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has said the total grant from the World Bank in support of solid minerals development in the country has risen to USD 200 million.

Mr Sheikh Goni permanent secretary in the ministry while giving a break-down of the current developments in the mining and steel industry during the hand over of power by the former Minister of Mines and Steel Development said that World Bank provided USD 120 million for the artisanal miners and an additional USD 80 million to promote medium scale mining activities.

He said as part of the efforts by the ministry to resuscitate the ailing mining sector, it has so far granted 11,600 licenses to investors in the last three years.

Mr Goni said that “In the area of sustainable development of mineral resources, Nigeria has received USD 120 million. Also the ministry has succeeded in getting the World Bank to approve additional USD 80 million to support the activities of medium scale miners and to grant extension on the drawing on loans from the bank’s facility for development of the mining sector.”

He further added that “In 2009, the embargo on applications for mining licenses was lifted and we had over 9,000 applications. Between October last year to date, we have completed processing of 9,300 applications for mining licenses and improved on our speed of processing application to 24 hours.”

According to Mr Goni, when the Mineral and Mines Act came out in March, 2007, the ministry gave out 2,000 mining licenses that did not comply with the relevant Act. He said that “Unfortunately, proper procedures and practices were not followed. Immediately after, the ministry ordered stoppage of the processing of the mining licence. But we were under a lot of pressure. We had 9,300 new applications pending and 2,300 defective applications. We had to take a bold decision to revalidate and ensure that all the licenses issued conformed with the appropriate governing the sector.”

(Sourced from www.thisdayonline.com)