Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, said on Wednesday that mining development grants under a new government-backed programme would be awarded strictly on merit, with no consideration given to personal connections or influence.
Alake spoke at the unveiling of the Early-Stage Mineral Exploration and Research Grant Endowment (EMERGE) Programme, an initiative aimed at supporting mineral exploration, research and value-addition within the country’s mining sector.
The programme, funded and implemented by the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), will be administered independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to ensure transparency and accountability in the grant-award process.
“EMERGE will be transparent and competitive from beginning to end,” Alake said.”
Applications will be assessed strictly on merit and the process is independently administered by PwC, our Programme Administration Partner, to guarantee transparency, accountability and a level playing field for every applicant.
“The minister said beneficiaries would be selected solely on the quality of their proposals, adding that the initiative marked the first time Nigeria was providing dedicated grants for geoscience, mineral-processing research and mining operators. According to him, the programme is designed to strengthen research capacity, support early-stage mineral exploration and advance mineral-processing technologies that add value to Nigeria’s mineral resources.
“The next breakthrough in how we process our lithium, our gold or our rare earths could come from a laboratory in one of our own universities and EMERGE exists to find it and to fund it,” he said.
Alake described the programme as part of broader reforms by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to diversify the economy and increase the mining sector’s contribution to gross domestic product. He highlighted recent achievements by the SMDF, including the establishment of the Africa Finance Corporation-SMDF Project Development Facility to co-fund and de-risk commercial mining projects.
The minister also cited the development of a 1.5 million metric tonnes-per-year alumina refinery, which he described as the largest single investment commitment in Nigeria’s mining history, as well as the supply of internationally certified gold to the Central Bank of Nigeria to support foreign reserves.
According to Alake, the government has created a comprehensive support framework for investors and innovators in the mining sector, spanning exploration, project development and mineral processing.
Earlier, SMDF Executive Secretary Fatima Shinkafi said EMERGE was designed to address long-standing funding gaps that have hindered the development of Nigeria’s mineral resources.She said the programme would provide catalytic funding to explorers, universities and research institutions, enabling promising projects to progress from concept to commercial viability.”For too long, Nigeria’s mineral wealth has sat in the ground as unrealised potential, its most promising projects unable to attract early funding,” Shinkafi said.
Applications for the grants opened on Wednesday and will be assessed on a rolling, first-come, first-served basis.