The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has reported that Nigeria earned N79.96 billion from the solid minerals sector in 2019.
The figure which represents accruals to the Federation and other subnational entities shows a 15 percent increase when compared to the N69.47bn recorded in 2018.
This is contained in the 2019 audit report of the solid minerals sector released by NEITI on Monday.
An outstanding N8.887bn from the solid minerals sector in 2019 was distributed amongst the three tiers of government in May 2020. The balance as at October 2020 was N3.948bn, NEITI stated.
From the N8.8bn, the federal government got N4.073bn while the states got N2.065bn. The local governments got N1.592bn while the balance of N1.155bn was distributed to only solid minerals producing states as their shares of the 13% derivation.
The 2019 audit report revealed that the total volume of minerals produced was 59.82 metric tonnes.
Out of 702 companies that paid royalties to the government in 2019, only 74 companies met the materiality threshold of N3 million. This represents a 7.2% increase compared to 69 entities that met materiality threshold in 2018.
“These 74 companies accounted for 87.63% of total royalties of N2.50bn paid in 2019, with the top five companies (Dangote Cement PLC; Lafarge PLC; Dangote Industries; Julius Berger; and Reynolds Construction) paying over 50% of the total royalties.”
The report also disclosed that a total of 1,296 mineral permits were issued by the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) in 2019.
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