'Why CBN’s purchase of locally produced gold’ll boost foreign reserves'

The Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, PAGMI has assured that Central Bank of Nigeria’s purchase of locally produced gold will boost the nation’s foreign reserves.

This was made known in a statement signed by the Secretary, PAGMI, Hajiya Fatima Shinkafi.

According to the statement gold produced by artisanal and small-scale miners will be at the licensed buying centres, which they will supply the CBN.

The statement reads in part, “Through PAGMI, the Central Bank of Nigeria will purchase locally produced gold in Naira to boost the nation’s foreign reserves.

PAGMI will buy all the gold produced by artisanal and small-scale miners and aggregated by licensed buying centres and aggregators for supply to the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

The statement also assured and allayed fears that the initiative will safeguard the environment and deploy safer mining practices in order to avoid any form of health and environmental problems.

“PAGMI will deploy safer and more efficient mining and processing technologies across artisanal mining locations across the country, starting with Kebbi and Osun States as the Pilot States with intervention in Kaduna, Zamfara and Niger States to commence immediately after the Pilot.”