The federal government has commissioned a gold processing plant at Mopa in Kogi State.
According to the minister of mines and steel development, Olamilekan Adegbite, who performed the commissioning, the choice of Mopa as a location for the gold processing plant was predicated on its central position on the Schist Belt of Nigeria, which stretches from the northwest of the country through western Kogi State to southwest Nigeria.
With the location of the gold processing plant in Mopa, artisanal and small-scale gold operators within the Schist Belt states can easily have access to the plant for their gold processing and refining. The Nigerian Schist Belt is known to host rich deposits of gold.
The informal trading of unprocessed gold leads to capital flight and job losses. It was in a bid to develop the downstream sector of the mining industry to improve product pricing, create jobs, grow revenue generation, and attract foreign markets to Nigeria that the recently commissioned gold processing plant was built.
At the inception of Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the president did not mince words in his desire to encourage the diversification of Nigeria’s economic base.
In line with the president’s resolve to anchor his economic diversification agenda on two key sectors of mining and agriculture, the ministry of mines and steel development designed six strategic ASM cluster projects in the six geopolitical zones as a means of harnessing the potentials of the over three million ASM operators in the country.
The gold processing plant in Mopa is one of these projects, and these landmark projects are to create an enabling environment to support the Nigerian mining industry through the formalization of the ASM sub-sector policy as a major driver of the key growth parameters to engender the development of the larger mining sector, since over 90% of mining activities in the country could be regarded as ASM-driven, according to official estimates.
This policy is in line with the Economic Growth and Sustainability Plan of the Federal Government, which is geared towards formalizing ASM activities, curbing the exploitation of artisanal and small-scale gold miners, as well as developing the capacities of teaming youths in the country to actively participate in the nation’s downstream gold value chain.
The cluster concept upon which the project design is based has become a global trend in industrial development to promote shared amenities, agglomeration of similar producers, and customers based on geographical proximity or access to complementary expertise to promote efficiency and increase specialization and increased production.
It is expected that the plant will create and generate sustainable competitive advantages in the following key areas:
• Development of downstream gold mining industries.
• increasing the level of competitive inputs (such as services, machinery and equipment).
• increasing the level of employment in all business activities related to the gold mining cluster.
• increasing the rate and exports of value-added products and services & attracting foreign investments.
• generating new start-up companies.
• increasing trade performance & generating higher corporate profits; and
• improving mineral production output and ease of mining sector regulation and administration and
• Creation of more jobs through emergence of service industries because of increase cluster activities.
Some of the envisaged outcomes from the international gemstone market include:
• The creation of over 20,000 jobs along the gold mining value chain in the northentral Nigerian cluster;
• Improved revenue generation from the ASM subsector for both operators and government;
• Increased number of ASM operators that are inventoried, formalized, and receiving technical assistance;
• Emergence of subsidiary and service-oriented companies that will boost further economic activities and
• Improved infrastructure for the benefit of miners and other surrounding economic actors amongst others.
The Kogi gold processing plant is designed with facilities to beneficiate, test, certify, document, and effect necessary payments for royalties and processing fees required to support direct international businesses. It houses state-of-the-art gold processing machinery and equipment, as well as over 30 stalls, administrative block, training section, and a ministerial office, together with stable power supply.
The ministry of mines and steel development, as a matter of strategy, haa prioritized the ASM sub-sector in order to stem incessant illegalities that have fraught the subsector in Nigeria by initiating and supporting biometric data capturing of all registered artisanal and small-scale miners across the country under the formalization and mainstreaming of ASM operators.
Presently, the ministry is creating an ecosystem to minimize the high rate of illegal mining and smuggling, increase government revenue from the resource, create jobs and improve environmental and social stewardship.
Adegbite commended President Buhari and the Kogi State governor for their support in making the project a reality. He also thanked the World Bank, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Development Programme, the Global Environment Facility, among others, for their respective contributions towards achieving the gold processing feat in Nigeria. The governments of Canada, Australia were also commended by the minister for helping in efforts to address the ASM challenges in the country.
