NEITI raises alarm over criminal networks, revenue leakages in mining sector

…Says N401bn revenue too meager, unacceptable
By Uche Usim
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has lifted the lid on the scale of illicit financial flows ravaging Nigeria’s mining sector and warned that weak regulation, opaque ownership structures, illegal mining and criminal infiltration were undermining the country’s economic diversification drive.
In a new policy brief released Thursday in Abuja, NEITI described illicit financial flows (IFFs) in the solid minerals sector as systemic and deeply entrenched, stressing that the problem has continued to deprive the nation of critical revenues despite Nigeria’s vast deposits of gold, lithium, limestone ...