Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, has presented refined gold bars to President Bola Tinubu, saying the first transaction of the commodity added $5 million to Nigeria’s external reserves.
In a statement on Sunday by Segun Tomori, the minister’s special assistant on media, Alake said the refined gold will be sold to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bolster foreign reserves.
He told the president that the event marked the first commercial transaction under the national gold purchase program (NGPP), a centralised offtake scheme supported by a decentralised aggregation and production network of artisanal and small-scale miners and cooperatives.
Alake said the transaction delivered a $5 million increase in Nigeria’s foreign reserves assets, 70 plus kilograms of gold refined to the London Bullion Market good delivery standard, and a successful aggregation of locally mined gold, thereby injecting about N6 billion into the rural economy.