Dangote Contributes 53% of Government’s Revenue from Mineral Resources Sector, Says NEITI

Crusoe Osagie

An agency of the federal government, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has stated that Dangote Industries Limited generates more mineral resource revenue for the government than the rest of the nation put together.

In its reports made available to journalists yesterday, Dangote Cement was noted as responsible for 53 per cent of the government revenue, that is, N15.9 billion of the total N33.86 billion that accrued to the federal government in 2013.

The report revealed that 93 per cent of the total government revenues from the solid minerals sector was from five companies: Dangote, WAPCO, Ashaka Cement, Unicem, CCNN and others.

The report stated that: “53 per cent of the country’s revenue from the solid minerals sector was paid by Dangote Cement Plc to the federal government.”

NEITI said Nigeria has about 52 solid mineral resources across all states of the federation, with every state possessing at least two mineral resources.

But of all 52, limestone, it said, was exploited in 2013 more than 51 others put together.

Limestone, which is used for making cement, was responsible for 52 per cent of solid mineral productions. Granite, laterite, and sand were responsible for 27.8, 11.3 and 5.8 per cent respectively. Forty-eight other minerals were responsible for only three per cent of the country’s solid mineral production.

Dangote Cement Plc has since expanded its frontiers beyond Africa, into Asia, by constructing a three million metric tons per annum (mmtpa), Cement Plant in Nepal, as part of its new investment of $4.34 billion into 10 African countries.

Chairman of Dangote Cement, Aliko Dangote, who revealed this recently, assured Nigerians that the country would no longer be used as a dumping ground, as the company now has capacity to export more than 10 million metric tonnes of cement outside the country.

Currently in 15 African countries, excluding Kenya, Niger and Mali, which are new projects. The company’s current total capacity stands at 48mmtpa, out of which Nigeria alone has the largest chunk of 29.3mmtpa.

Chatting with journalists recently, Aliko said: “We are not only building cement plants in Africa, we have gone far away to NEPAL to build a three million metric tons cement plant capacity and by the time all these our new projects are completed in the next two years, Dangote Cement will have more than 70 million capacity but we are not going to stop there, hopefully, by 2020, our targets is getting to somewhere around 100 million tons capacity. I can assure you categorically that Africa will not lack cement now and even in the future…Africa will be self-sufficient rather than be a dumping ground for other manufacturers of cement.”