Dr Kayode Fayemi: Minister, Mining and Steel Development

The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development says it will soon disburse loans to Artisanal and Small Scale Miners to improve their operations

Dr Abdulkadir Muazu, the Permanent Secretary of the Sector, announced this to the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) on the sideline of a two-day workshop on Policy and Capacity Building for a Successful and Sustainable Mining on Tuesday in Abuja.

Muazu said the ministry would disbursed the fund to the group of miners that met its criteria.

The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development and the Bank of Industry contributed N2.5 billion each to be loaned to the miners.

The ministry drew its N2.5 billion contribution from the Solid Mineral Development Fund.

The artisanal miners that registered with cooperatives could access from N100,000 to N10 million, while Smale Scale Miners could access from N10 million to N100 million.

He said the fund would be disbursed by BOI at five per cent interest rate.

He said the Miners Association of Nigeria was one of the key stakeholders of the sector but highly dominated by artisanal miners (illegal miners) operating without licence and tools.

According to him, the ministry is working assiduously with the BOI to treat all applications received and a lot of them met criteria for accessing the funds.