The Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society has called for the engagement of more officials to shore up the manpower situation in public mining agencies.

It also emphasised the need to improve the working conditions of workers in the sector to boost its fortunes.

NMGS President, Prof. Akinade Olatunji, made the suggestions in an interview with journalists on Sunday in Abuja.

Mr Olatunji said that the gestures would reposition the sector for improved services and avert incidents such as the January Ibadan explosion attributed to the storage of explosive materials by illegal miners.

He particularly advised the government to strengthen the manpower of the Mines Inspectorate Department and the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency for effective service delivery.

He said, “Currently, the department (Mines Inspectorate), is understaffed and undermanned. Each state and Abuja has a Federal Mines Offices, but they are poorly staffed. They do not have enough mining engineers and geologists. The current manpower in that department cannot deliver the kind of results expected.’’

He underscored the importance of generating geoscience data to ascertain the nation’s natural resources.

“There is a need to improve resources to enable the NGSA to fulfil its core mandate of producing geoscience data that can benefit all sectors. Government should involve non-governmental partners like the NMGS in its efforts to generate and deploy skills not available to the ministry of solid minerals development.

“We need to deploy the right skills to tackle issues of under-declaration by operators, especially concerning the payment of royalties and taxes. The goal is to shore up revenue accruable from the sector considerably,” he said.

He advised the government to identify local champions in the mining sector and promote them globally so that local and foreign investors would know that there are success stories to be proud of.

He also called for a synergy among the ministry, Nigeria Customs Service and the NMGS in providing expert knowledge and skills needed to curb the massive exportation of Nigeria’s mineral resources without declaration.

He noted that the situation had led to massive revenue leakage.

He also suggested the full implementation of the government directive requiring minerals to be processed before export, to ensure their deserved value in the international markets.

“This, alone, can revolutionise the industrial sector,” he said. 

(NAN)