Mr Salami Adegboyega, the Acting Director, Environmental Compliance Department of the ministry, stated this on Wednesday in Abuja in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Adegboyega said 17 mining companies were sanctioned in 2014, while nine were sanctioned this year for not complying with environmental rules.
The acting director said before any company begins mining operations; it was expected to submit mandatory environmental documents to the ministry.
Adegboyega said section111 and 116 of the Mining Act made it mandatory for companies to submit documents such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Environmental Processing and Rehabilitation Programme and Community Development Agreement.
“Some of these companies contravened the law and started production without the environmental documents; the ministry use these documents to monitor environmental compliances of the operators.’’
He said that in 2015, four companies were sanctioned in Niger, two in Ogun, one in Oyo State, one in Gombe, one in Bauchi; while 17 were sanctioned in other parts of the country.
He said that one of the cases in Ogun was critical as it involved pollution, vibration, noise and dusty environment; the communities raised an alarm.
Adegboyega said in the case of Oyo State, the company used the license wrongly as it had only exploration permit and it began mining after it had completed exploration exercise.
Adegboyega said the two companies in Ogun and Oyo states had no mandatory environmental permit to commence operation and they were sanctioned.
He said the ministry recently issued letters to almost all the mineral title holders with the deadline compliance date.
“ We give some six weeks, some four weeks, depending on whether we have issued similar letter before.
“The recent letters are remainder. We are expecting them to comply within this specified time. Any failure will amount to sanctions.
“ We have many cases of non-compliance in the sector. If we are to act promptly as the law required; it is going to be large number,’’ Adegboyega said.
He said the sanctions could be in form of stop work order or refusal to renew mineral titles.
He added that once the licenses were not renewed the operation become illegal.
“The law makes it clear that upon litigation most of these violators could be sanctioned.
“Section 133 stated that any violator of the act should be sanctioned.
“After prosecution, they can be subjected to fine and even imprisonment. So, we have all this provision of law to enforce,’’ he said.
Adegboyega said that the level of compliance was as low as 10 per cent, and put the number of mining companies operating in the country at about 500.
He said out of 500 mining companies operating in the country, only 35 of them had their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approved.
“So, if we are going to sanction them based on that, only 35 companies should be working.
“In as much as we want them to work; we want them to work in safe environment,not detrimental to the environment and to the people.’’ (NAN)
