Post COVID-19: FG proposes N2.3trn to boost mining, other sector

Adegbite said this in an interactive session with newsmen on Federal Government’s post-COVID-19 plans for the solid mineral sector, on Monday in Abuja. He said the ministry would get six billion naira from the total sum at the end of the day. According to him, the ministry has lofty plans before the COVID-19 pandemic, which he has adversely affected the solid mineral sector considering its operations. Adegbite said the development was not peculiar to the solid mineral sector as other sectors of the economy were equally affected by the pandemic. “The pandemic for instance, has limited our ability to go forward on the Ajaokuta Steel project, we are four to five months behind schedule according to government’s plans to resuscitate the complex before the pandemic,” he said. This, he said, was specifically so because Russian experts who supposed to come for the technical audit of the complex could not come because of the pandemic and the ban on flight operations. He added that the idea was for the experts to come into the country and be hosted for 12 weeks within which they were expected to do a proper audit of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex. He said this had been put on hold until the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ban on air travel was lifted. “When this is lifted and we think it is safe enough, these experts will come into the country and we will continue where we stopped. He added that the Ajaokuta Project Presidential Implementation Team (APPIT) was, however, still working but that the audit was very important to it. According to him, the technical audit report is necessary to enable the APPIT know the cost implication.