The National treasurer, Miners Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Bello Inuwa Galoji has said that banks in Nigeria are not familiar with the operations of miners and so are not paying priority to them when it comes to giving loans.
Galoji who stated this on Wednesday while answering questions from journalists at a training workshop organised for miners by the federal ministry of mines and steel development, Bauchi lamented that lack of funds is threatening their operations.
“Mining is a capital intensive business, it is not a one kobo two kobo business, you have to have a support, you have to have a financiers, and here in Nigeria, our banks are not familiar with financing mining activities because mining is not an issue whereby somebody will give you money for six months one year two year for you to pay back you have to have a loan of 25 years tenure. “So our banks are not ready for that”, he said.
Galoji who is also the Bauchi state chairman, Miners Association called for Mining to be mechanized in Nigeria for the sector to advance in doing its business.
“If you are going into mechanise mining, you need bulldozer, you need excavators, you need dredgers, you need compressors, whereby you have to blast, you have to open the ground and what have you. If you are going to do that artistically by hand, actually is not possible”, Alhaji Galoji maintained.
He said that one of the problems of mining in Nigeria is that the sector has not been mechanized as 80 percent of mining activities in the country are done with bare hands with the highest number of miners been artisan due to lack of funds.
Galoji who said the capital base for a small scale miner is over 250 million dollars, noted that the capital has always been the challenge because one must own at least not less than four to five excavator, two to three bulldozer, amongst others to start a mechanize mining.
The national treasurer who called for proper harnessing of the mining sector for the country to depend less on oil and gas added that for mining industry to flourish, Nigeria must invest heavily into mechanization and not by use of digger and shovel.
“By the time we are fully mechanized, human hands can only be used for directing, regulating and what have you. “So, for us to advance, a lot needs to be done, we have to have adequate funding for miners to use in their businesses, it is only when we do that in Nigeria that we can advance in terms of mining”, the association’s treasurer pointed out.
Galoji while boasting that Nigeria has capable and best hands in the mining sector added that “we have the knowledge, we have the experience, we have well-trained miners, professionals in the academics that are in the system but what we are lacking is funding”.
Alhaji Galoji informed that the extension workshop for the artisans and small scale miners in Bauchi is a capacity building workshop where all selected ASA miners were invited to represent their communities or local government areas.
He said that two zones of northeast and northwest that made up of thirteen states were taking part in the four day workshop with the essence of bringing miners together to give them new technology and trained them on the best way to go about doing mining.
The treasurer said that the participants would also be trained on mining safety, how to use your mining equipment in a safer way because mining with a bare hands is a great danger to health of the miners.
Earlier speaking, the representative of the Director, federal ministry of mines and steel, Mr Anene said that the program was organised not only as an incentive for the artisan miners to formalize their activities but is also aimed at improving the knowledge base, the skills of miners in carrying out their duties.
He added that the training will also help them to boost their production capabilities and to abreast them various safety measures while carrying out their job.
He said that it was in view of that the ministry has kick started the program for this year which is currently running across the federation covering miners in different zones, urging the participants to listen carefully to the resource persons.
According to him, the program has created and avenue where the participants will interact freely with the resource persons on how to go about their job and step-down the knowledge acquired when the go back to their respective areas.
