President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime says Nigeria is losing while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is benefitting from illegal gold trade taking place in the country.

To forestall the situation, the federal government agreed with the UAE to track the huge illegal movement of gold from Nigeria to Dubai.

Olamilekan Adegbite, Minister of Mines and Steel Development, announced this in the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum.

According to Adegbite, the federal government is currently negotiating a bilateral agreement with the UAE to check every gold entering Dubai from Nigeria.

He noted that a huge quantity of gold was being moved from Nigeria illegally daily to Dubai. The gold passed through UAE police, unknown to them that exporters did not pay royalties to Nigeria.

“The UAE collect their own charges on gold that arrived in Dubai airport, but the Nigerian government has told UAE to ask anyone entering Dubai with Nigeria gold to present the certificate of exportation got from Nigeria before allowing them to pass.

“We have agreed with UAE to seize any gold from Nigeria without the certificate of exportation. We told them that the value of the gold would be shared equally as an incentive for the UAE to eradicate the illegal exportation of gold from Nigeria to Dubai,” stated Mr Adegbite.

The minister added that “all we expected from whoever that is travelling from Nigeria to Dubai with our raw gold is to pay a royalty” to the Nigerian government, and “such person will be given a certificate of exportation.”

The minister added, “The certificate of exportation will be automatically integrated into the Nigeria Customs Service system, our law accepts exportation of gold, but royalty must be paid.”

(NAN)