The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (NEITI) said on Sunday the country earned N69.47 billion from the Solid Mineral sector in 2018.

NEITI disclosed this in its latest audit report of the solid minerals sector released in Abuja, indicating that the figure was the highest since NEITI commenced the reconciliation of payments in the sector.

It noted that the figure showed an increase of N16.71 billion representing 31.67 percent over the 2017 revenue of N52.76 billion.

“The earnings N69.47 billion also accounted for 16.69 percent of the total revenues N416.3billion that accrued to the sector from 2007 to 2018,’’ it said.

The audit report reconciled companies’ payments and government’s receipts from the sector in 2018 as well as tracked production volumes and trends of revenues from the sector to the federation account from 2007 to 2018.

A breakdown of the figure showed that taxes to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) accounted for N65.69 billion 94.56 percent of the total while fees and royalties paid to the Mines Inspectorate Department (MID) and Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) accounted for N2.21 billion 3.18 percent and N1.57 billion 2.26 percent, respectively.

It revealed that Nigeria had published eight cycles of solid minerals audit reports since it signed up to the NEITI, adding that the sector has contributed N416.32billion in revenues to the federation in 12 years.

It noted that over half of this figure or N279.0 billion was earned between 2015 and 2018.  This, it said showed that there had been a remarkable increase in revenues accruing to the Federation from the solid minerals sector over the years.

(NAN)