Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development (MMSD) on Monday in Abuja advised the agencies under the ministry to double their efforts to achieve greater feat for the sector.
Adegbite gave the advice when Mr Obadiah Nkom, the Director-General, Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO), presented him an award won by NMCO recently as the best digital innovation in the Federal Government category for the year 2022.
According to him, there is no doubt that all the agencies under the ministry have done so well in discharging their duties but more efforts are still needed to achieve the diversification plan of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He congratulated the NMCO for making the ministry proud as it came best in digital innovation in the Federal Government category for the year 2022.ng.
NAN recalls that Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), recently awarded NMCO the best in digital innovation in the Federal Government category for the year 2022.ng.
NiRA is a Non-Governmental body established in 2005 by the Order of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is charged with the management of Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain (hereinafter referred to as ccTLD), dot.ng.
He said that NMCO had gone through a lot in ensuring that the sector moved from analogue to digital to compete with the international standard.
“NMCO has come a long way from the days of analogue record taking, issuance of licences among others but the office is now operating online; everything is now conducted online.
“NMCO has also recorded a giant stride in terms of revenue generation every year for the Federal Government, this is worth commending,” he said.
The minister said that the success recorded by NMCO recently was as a result of N30 billion mining intervention given to the sector in 2017 by the Federal Government.
Adegbite said that the ministry was able to support the NMCO from the fund to upscale its activities.
He said however that the ministry had also achieved success by investing part of the fund to generate mineral data.
“We have made huge success too in mineral data collection, we are at a point now that the sector is getting attention internationally.
“Just recently, I approved the sales of some of the data to mining investors and many more are still coming for data; we are creating a special account for the sales of data.”
Dr Oluwatoyin Akinlade, the Permanent Secretary, MMSD said that
digitisation and innovation were core elements of the service improvement agenda of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
“It is therefore gratifying that NMCO is rated the best in Digital Innovation among the Federal establishments in Nigeria for the year 2022 by NIRA.
“I urge the various team leaders, Directors, Heads of Departments and Agencies to key into service improvement agenda of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
“Especially in the area of digitisation and innovation by developing new ideas that can be used in addressing emerging challenges.”
Earlier, Nkom appreciated the minister and the permanent secretary for the support given to NMCO to operate and compete at the international level.
According to him, NMCO will continue in this trend to lead Nigeria into a highly prosperous mining industry.
The NMCO was nominated by the public and assessed by the Award Jury as it fulfilled the criteria for the category.
NMCO competed with other nominees such as Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and National Pension Commission (PENCOM) and emerged the winner with highest votes.