By Giwa SHILE
A gold miner, Alhaji Aminu Abdala, has advised the Federal Government to put in place the required infrastructure to enhance the certification of National Geosciences Research Laboratories (NGRL) in Kaduna by ISO.
ISO is the International Organisation for Standardisation.
Laboratories conducting mineral analysis all over the world require ISO certification before their analytical tests can be acceptable.
Abdala said in Abuja on Monday that the certificates obtained from minerals analysed in Nigeria were unacceptable in the international community.
According to him, currently, there is no laboratory in Nigeria conducting mineral analysis that has ISO certification. Only South Africa, Burkina Faso and Ghana have ISO certification in Africa.
“The NGRL is one of the centres of excellence established by the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) to conduct analytical tests on rocks, minerals and water in line with its responsibilities.
“But mining countries are rejecting certificates of mineral samples analysed by Nigeria laboratory due to lack of ISO certification.
“Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) laboratory in Kaduna has the required equipment for analysing minerals, but has yet to receive ISO certification to meet international standard.’’
TBI Africa reports that analyses are being conducted on minerals during explorations to ascertain their qualities and what they contained.
In 2017, the NGSA said it had commenced a process of certifying the NGRL in Kaduna to ensure that results of mineral sampling analysed in the laboratory met the required international standard.
Abdala said some basic equipment needed for the process had been fixed and some equipment that required to be in operation for 24 hours had been provided in NGSA, Kaduna.
Abdala said the local miners were spending a large chunk of money to analyse mineral samples abroad and urged the Federal Government to expedite action on the certification of NGSA.
He also urged the government to provide miners with necessary heavy equipment needed for mining on hiring basis to enhance their operations.
Similarly, Alhaji Umar Mohammed, a small scale miner operating in Zamfar advised the government to the release the N5billion mining intervention loan domiciled in the Bank of Industry (BoI).
Umar, who is also the special adviser to the president of miners association of Nigeria, urged the government to make more funds available for the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development to boost the country’s GDP.
He also appealed to the Federal Government to extend its security personnel to some mining sites for security of miners.
