On Fayemi’s 700 million naira website By Ebuka Nwankwo

The minister of mines and steel development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has
disclosed that his ministry spent N700 million developing an
Integrated Automation and Interactive Geographic Information System
(GIS) Web Portal to improve ‘Ease-of-Doing-Business’ in the mining
sector.

“The portal was designed for mining investors to perform business
processes such as online mining licences and mineral titles
applications, online payment of royalties and fees, database for
revenue drive and to block revenue leakages,’’ the minister stated
at the launch of the portal.

The minister also mentioned other interesting features of the
portal (website) but this news has provoked all kinds of angry
reactions in the social media. One senator tweeted about how
ridiculous it was to develop a website for N700 million. While one
commenter, who claimed to be a web developer, argued that a quality
website would not cost more than N200,000.

But there are some technicalities that need to be addressed in
order to get a holistic picture of what the minister presented. And
of course, in order to ask the right questions.

Prior to 2007, Nigeria’s mining sector was characterized by a
multiplicity of functions; outdated mineral titles that rendered
the entire mining register opaque; and the issuance of mining
rights without recourse to the Mining Act.

But the Mining and Mineral Act 2007 led to the modernization of the
mining register to a computerized cadastral system. The Act
guaranteed a secure mineral rights system, by recording the
geographical location, ownership, type of mineral rights and
validity period. It ensured compliance with environmental
obligations and social agreements and also payment of required
fees.

With these reforms, an aerial-survey was carried out in order to
map out mining sites in Nigeria.But these were still not able to
bring in the required investments, as anticipated.

One reason for this was that mining licenses in Nigeria could not
be used as collaterals for loans, as it applied in other global
mining hubs. Existing licenses were worth mineral titles without
any reliable and proven information on estimated quantity.

Investment banks need to know the value of scientifically proven
and agreed upon reserves in mines in order to calculate cash flow
from assets.

Funding gaps had also been the reason for the lack of an extensive
geo-science data gathering,on the part of government, in order to
establish the real values of these licenses and assets.

Carrying out geo-science data gathering to map out the quantity of
minerals in these sites would cost billions of dollars just as it
is in the oil and gas industry. And that, certainly, was not what
has been done. (Industry experts are stilled worried about the
paucity of these data and the guestimates in this space.)

And of course, the interactive and payment features of the portal
presented by the minister were obviously not the reason for the
huge cost of the platform. Technically, the GIS feature could be
the only explanation for the huge cost of the platform.

A GIS system is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze,
manage, and present all types of geographical data – in this case
mining data.  Thus, some portion of the data would be spatial
and could be referenced to locations on the earth.

The key activities needed to develop a GIS system are (1)
preliminary survey (which had been done in the ministry) (2)
establishing control centre set-ups (3) GIS and asset management
software installation, integration, interphase design and
configuration (3) data update, collection and map digitalization
(4) Testing of the developed system.

The ball is on the minister’s court to explain how these activities
amounted to the figure attributed to as the cost of the website.
Such explanation would douse the public outcry about the cost of
this portal – or rather, website.

The web portal is:  portal.minesandsteel.gov.ng 

The minister of mines and steel development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has
disclosed that his ministry spent N700 million developing an
Integrated Automation and Interactive Geographic Information System
(GIS) Web Portal to improve ‘Ease-of-Doing-Business’ in the mining
sector.

“The portal was designed for mining investors to perform business
processes such as online mining licences and mineral titles
applications, online payment of royalties and fees, database for
revenue drive and to block revenue leakages,’’ the minister stated
at the launch of the portal.

The minister also mentioned other interesting features of the
portal (website) but this news has provoked all kinds of angry
reactions in the social media. One senator tweeted about how
ridiculous it was to develop a website for N700 million. While one
commenter, who claimed to be a web developer, argued that a quality
website would not cost more than N200,000.

But there are some technicalities that need to be addressed in
order to get a holistic picture of what the minister presented. And
of course, in order to ask the right questions.

Prior to 2007, Nigeria’s mining sector was characterized by a
multiplicity of functions; outdated mineral titles that rendered
the entire mining register opaque; and the issuance of mining
rights without recourse to the Mining Act.

But the Mining and Mineral Act 2007 led to the modernization of the
mining register to a computerized cadastral system. The Act
guaranteed a secure mineral rights system, by recording the
geographical location, ownership, type of mineral rights and
validity period. It ensured compliance with environmental
obligations and social agreements and also payment of required
fees.

With these reforms, an aerial-survey was carried out in order to
map out mining sites in Nigeria.But these were still not able to
bring in the required investments, as anticipated.

One reason for this was that mining licenses in Nigeria could not
be used as collaterals for loans, as it applied in other global
mining hubs. Existing licenses were worth mineral titles without
any reliable and proven information on estimated quantity.

Investment banks need to know the value of scientifically proven
and agreed upon reserves in mines in order to calculate cash flow
from assets.

Funding gaps had also been the reason for the lack of an extensive
geo-science data gathering,on the part of government, in order to
establish the real values of these licenses and assets.

Carrying out geo-science data gathering to map out the quantity of
minerals in these sites would cost billions of dollars just as it
is in the oil and gas industry. And that, certainly, was not what
has been done. (Industry experts are stilled worried about the
paucity of these data and the guestimates in this space.)

And of course, the interactive and payment features of the portal
presented by the minister were obviously not the reason for the
huge cost of the platform. Technically, the GIS feature could be
the only explanation for the huge cost of the platform.

A GIS system is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze,
manage, and present all types of geographical data – in this case
mining data.  Thus, some portion of the data would be spatial
and could be referenced to locations on the earth.

The key activities needed to develop a GIS system are (1)
preliminary survey (which had been done in the ministry) (2)
establishing control centre set-ups (3) GIS and asset management
software installation, integration, interphase design and
configuration (3) data update, collection and map digitalization
(4) Testing of the developed system.

The ball is on the minister’s court to explain how these activities
amounted to the figure attributed to as the cost of the website.
Such explanation would douse the public outcry about the cost of
this portal – or rather, website.

The web portal is:  portal.minesandsteel.gov.ng