Zamfara State Governor, Dr. Bello Muhammad Matawalle, has commended the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government for setting up a 14-member National Taskforce Committee to Draft a Mining Legal Framework that will guide mining activities in the state and other parts of the country.
The committee which is under the NSA Office in the Presidency, was inaugurated on Thursday, November 25th, 2021 at the Presidential Villa, Abuja by the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd) whose office will also lead the committee as Chairman.
Matawalle particularly noted that this development which is going to be most beneficial to Zamfara, its good people and government, will be a pacesetter in the right direction at finding lasting solution to the activities of armed banditry, kidnapping and other heineous crimes being perpetrated in the state.
He said he has made several calls at different fora for positive practical and workable measures to be taken on mining activities in the state in particular as it is blessed with vast untapped natural endowments as well as in other parts of the country in order to have control and guiding rules and regulations as against the crude ways many of the locals are put at life threatening risks with zero or very little benefits coming to them while big companies and their owners, foreign and national who are not indigenes of the state syphon these resources with not direct or indirect benefit to the state or its people.
The Barden Hausa who noted with pleasure the inclusion of the representation of the state on the committee as a critical stakeholder, assured the federal government that the experienced contributions to be made by the state will strongly be advantageous to both the miners and the federal government in guiding mining activities in all parts of the nation.
The governor was represented on the committee which had an express mandate to immediately screen ten (10) indigenous companies to mine in the state during the inauguration by the state’s Commissioner of Environment and Solid Mineral Development, Dr. Nura Isah Gusau.
The terms of reference of the committee include development of a framework for vetting of prospective that will undergo mining activities in Zamfara and other states in Nigeria, conducting background checks and selection of prospective companies forwarded by the Ministry of Mines and Solid Mineral Development for mining in Zamfara and other states in Nigeria and conducting any other task in relation to the assignment given.
The NSA pledged to support the committee to carryout the assignment as expected noting that some of the attendant security challenges which necessitated the Federal Government to ban illegal mining in Zamfara could be reduced to enable the state regain its socio-economic development
