As part of measures to position the solid materials sector for economic consolidation and international competitiveness, the federal government has announced a new regime of rates and charges for its various services.
The minister of solid minerals development, Dele Alake, who announced the rates to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday at a Press Conference in his office said 268 items of the ministry’s services are affected by the rate regime.
Alake said the new rates which take immediate effect came on the heels of the introduction of qualitative measures and human and technological capacity upgrades implemented in recent times to raise the level of technical efficiency of the services in the sector.
According to him, the new regime which also includes royalties and penalties is designed to improve the traffic of transactions and develop infrastructure to cope with the resurgence of business interests in the sector.
The minister said a committee of the directors of departments and directors-general of agencies under the ministry was charged to work out new rates to justify the government’s investment in the service infrastructure and to cope with the expected meteoric spike in the traffic of applicants besieging the regulatory machinery.
