At the Nigeria Gold Day celebration on the sidelines of the 10th edition of the Nigeria Mining Week in Abuja, on Wednesday, Alake said that gold as an international currency acceptable for various exchanges, which Nigeria, through the NGPP, can leverage to increase its foreign reserves.
The NGPP is a centralised offtake scheme supported by a decentralised aggregation and production network of artisanal and small-scale miners and cooperatives.
The minister said that the programme would also curb gold smuggling and reposition the solid minerals sector for greater productivity and transparency.
He said: ‘The philosophy of that programme, how salutary it is, is that, we use our local naira, not foreign exchange, to mop up gold, then sell it to the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria).
‘We use our naira and get Naira back from CBN for the gold itself becomes foreign reserves for the bank.
‘This is to say that there is no amount of economic calculation you can do that will be faster in terms of shoring up our foreign reserves than this particular gold programme’, he said.
The Executive Director of SMDF, Fatima Shinkafi said that gold exploration funding in Nigeria is trending upwards, contrary to global trends.
She encouraged participants at the summit to explore Nigeria’s gold opportunities.
Earlier, the Minister of Steel Development, Shuaibu Abubakar said that the Federal Government has initiated talks with the Republic of China to take over the revitalisation of the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and the National Iron Ore Mining Company.
