Mining: Expert calls for consistency in policy to boost investors' trust

An expert in the mining sec­tor, Ronald Buijk has said unless the Federal Govern­ment remain consistent in imple­menting its policy in the mining sector then its efforts in attracting foreigners to invest in the country would end in futility .
Buijk who spoke to The AU­THORITY yesterday in an exclu­sive interview said consistency is key to boosting investors trust.

“Well, the key word there is compliance. You know anyone from outside who want to come and invest in Nigeria wants that Nigeria is complying to the regu­lation. They want protection and they want to be sure that the regu­lation which is at the mining is go­ing to be lived on and everything is going to be strict according to the rule.
“Like when they have mining licences, they want to be sure the mining licence will be respect­ed for the next coming 25years or 50year or whatever the duration of the licences is so they do not have feeling every year something can change.
“If government is changing yearly and this what Nigeria has to work on seriously to make inves­tor friendly most of the people are afraid at the moment to come into Nigeria because they are afraid that when they invest a lot of money, it might change in one or three years and they lose their investment, so that is staring away at this moment the investors,” he said.
He stressed the need to regulate mining industry properly by the government to ensure that it ex­pose the potentials of the industry.
“I think the first thing that has to happen, they have to start regu­lating the overflow of the material, because there is a lot of mining of­ficials. I think there is no export of mining materials, at the moment in Nigeria. So, a lot of that is mostly smuggled out of the country.
“So, they have to start regulat­ing it so they have to start making and creating awareness to people, that you do not have to smuggle that, that you can do it officially be­cause you do not have to pay for it if you do it officially. And by do­ing that, you will get the visibility of the potential of mines in Nige­ria and once people see that the po­tential is there they will come and they will start building the mining from small scale mining to medi­um scale mining and to big sale mining companies”.