By Nathaniel Zaccheaus, Abuja
The Senate Committee on Solid Minerals has pledged legislative support to protect Chinese companies planning to invest $1 billion in the country’s solid minerals sector.
The representatives of the Chinese firms were in the National Assembly to secure the assurance of the federal lawmakers before investing their funds.
They planned to invest an initial $500m in Zamfara, Kebbi and Nasarawa states and bring another $500m if they enjoyed a favourable outcome.
The acting Chairman of the Committee, Senator Onawo Mohammed Ogoshi (SDP- Nasarawa South), gave the assurance during an interactive session between the panel and a Chinese delegation.
According to a statement by his Media Office yesterday, Ogoshi assured the delegation that the Senate would provide enabling legislation to protect their investments in any part of the country.
He said, “The Nigerian Senate is supposed to give you all the necessary encouragement to come and bring this massive amount of money to our economy.
“Our laws on solid minerals exploration are very robust. We intend to make it more robust by amending obsolete laws and enacting laws to give your companies better protection in doing good business in Nigeria.”
He appealed to the delegation to bring more investors into Nigeria to do business.
Also speaking, a committee member, Senator Adamu Aliero, said, “I join the Chairman to commend you for coming to invest in our country.
“You have come at the right time when the country is venturing into diversifying her economy. We had a mono-economy before now, where we depended heavily on oil for our foreign exchange earnings.
“However, the Federal Government has realised that we had no better choice than to look for other sectors of the economy to earn revenue to finance our budget, and solid minerals is one area where we have a lot of potential.
“We will do all we can to facilitate your involvement in this sector. We will liaise with the Ministry of Solid Minerals at the national level to secure licenses and give you permission to go and start mining.
“We will also talk to the governors and the traditional institutions to ensure that you have free access to the areas where you are going to do your business, and once that is done, I don’t think you will have any problem,” he said.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation comprising some solid minerals exploration firms from China, Mr Chen Twan of Zong Hong Kotai Group, said that the delegation is coming up with an initial $500m to invest in three states of Nigeria, comprising Zamfara, Kebbi and Nasarawa.
He noted that if they do well within the first year of their exploration in the three states, they will extend their investments to other states with solid minerals’ potential.
Mr Chen Twan said, “If we test the waters and see that they are reasonable, we will attract more investors to Nigeria to invest in mineral deposits.
“As an international group, our company specialises in mining and bitumen. In the past few years, we have invested extensively globally. On that strength, we have come to Nigeria to survey the possibility of investing in your country’s mining and industrial park sectors for the coming year.
“We also have another investment in Nigeria, and we will make that known in the course of our stay in the country.”
Also, a representative of Nigerian investors and Managing Director of El-Tahdam Exploration Limited, Mr Adamu Tah, said, “Over time, we have been engaging them for the past two years. We have gone to their factories in China.
“I have personally visited their factories for the past year, I saw their processes, and we know what they do, we trust them, and we are a Nigerian-based company.
“They are not coming to Nigeria on their own; they are coming based on the investigation they have done, the companies we have, and the licenses we have acquired.
“So, they are coming to build on those licenses, and that is why when they came, we had to introduce them to our fathers so that they will have full confidence in investing in Nigeria, knowing that we are a true company doing the right thing and following the laws of the country.”
He said the Senate’s support has given them the courage to invest huge amounts of money in the nation’s solid minerals sector.
“With Senate’s support, they still want to invest more money into this venture, and if that is good, they intend to invest another $1bn into the solid minerals sector when this first phase of the investment scales through,” he said.
