The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development says it has commenced Nationwide environmental monitoring to ensure mining title holders comply with mining laws and regulations.

Mr Sallim Salaam, the Director, Mines Environmental Compliance Department of the ministry told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

Salaam said that the programme would be conducted in the six geo political zones of the nation.

He said that the states selected from the six political zones included Edo, Cross River, Oyo, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Benue, kogi, Kaduna, Zamfara and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The director said that some teams from the department had visited six sites in Ogun and six others in Edo, adding that samples were taken from all the sites for analysis.

“We also visited lead and zinc mining sites in Ebonyi and a granite mining site in Calabar.”

He added that the programme, which started in October, would be completed by middle of December.

Salaam said the essence of the programme was to monitor mining title holders in those states to ensure that their mining activities did not pose environmental, social and health hazard to their host communities and workers.

” We want to ensure that they comply with all environmental requirements with regard to fulfilment of “Environmental Protection Rehabilitation Programme.

“The idea of this programme is to also ensure that all title holders reclaim all sites mined and to revert to the status-quo as required by the law,” he said.