About 82 mining companies failed to make the mandatory social payments to host communities, according to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
This was disclosed in NEITI Industry report for the Solid Minerals Industry for 2021, which was recently launched.
The report disclosed that out of 121 companies, only 39 made the mandatory social payments in line with the community development agreement.
It read, “The report observed that only 39 out of 121 companies made the mandatory social payments as contained in the CDA signed with their host communities, while 10 companies made only non-mandatory social payments/expenditures.
“This reveals poor compliance to the social benefit to host communities’ requirements of the NMMA 2007 and NMMR 2011 as embedded in the CDA’s.”
It was also disclosed that many mining companies did not comply with environmental standards during their operations.
‘The report found that only 50 out of 121 companies (41.32 per cent) fully complied with environmental standards, indicating low overall compliance with environmental laws and regulations by most companies,” the report added.
NEITI advised the Ministry of Solid Minerals and Mining Cadastre Office to work on a framework to monitor compliance with the terms of the Mineral and Mining Act 2007 and the Minerals and Mining Regulations, 2011.
It also advised penalties for non-compliance and appropriate implementation of such penalties.
The former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, had reiterated the need for mining companies operating in different communities in the country to keep to the terms made in the signed Community Development Agreement.
He said that the Federal Government takes the mining company’s relationship with the host community seriously.
Explaining part of the content of the CDA, he said, “it is an agreement with the host community wherein a set of projects is agreed upon and everyone is bound to follow it for a period of five years.”
He called on mining companies to be more responsive to their host communities for peaceful coexistence. The minister added that apart from projects contained in the CDA, the community should prosper as the mining companies prosper.
