Dear Editor,

I AM one of a few small miners who have, for several years, worked on government reserve land until a few months ago. We have been informed that this land now belongs to a large-scale miner, and we have to cease working immediately and pack up and leave this land.Sir, we have tried unsuccessfully to get mining permission for this land. Now we are left wondering how this large-scale miner got documents to this piece of land which we, the miners who are actually working the land, could not receive.

We have sought audience with Natural Resources Minister Mr. Raphael Trotman, but we have been told he does not meet with small miners, nor does he meet with the public. We tried calling his office many times, and on every occasion we were told he is unavailable. We also wrote him, but we are yet to receive a response.

We journeyed to the GGMC to meet with Minister Broomes on her “Open Day”, but we were told that the “Open Day” has been discontinued; and when we asked where we could find Minister Broomes’s office, so we could go there to complain to her, we were told she does not have an office.

Sir, it is as if this Government does not want to hear the complaints of small miners, and is pretending that all is well in the gold mining industry. Oil is the only thing we hear Minister Trotman and this Government speak about, yet oil production is 10 years away.

What about gold and the small gold miners? We are Guyanese who have been here all our lives, and we are trying to work today. We need land to work today to support our families today, not 10 years from now.

Is there no policy or forum to address the concerns of small miners? Have no provisions been made for us to receive any of the land that was recently allotted and distributed to miners?

Sir, the recent distribution of land, which was promised by Minister Trotman to small miners to remedy the historic wrong which resulted in small miners not having any lands to work, came and went; yet most small miners have not received any land, neither do we know what process, if any, exists for us to get a piece of this land. The recent land distribution is like a national secret, nobody knows anything about it.

The rampant corruption continues at GGMC. Large and connected miners can, at a moment’s notice, receive mining licences to land anywhere in this country, while miners working small pieces of land cannot get lawful permission to work. And now they have closed the only avenue we had for lodging complaints against the GGMC and to receive justice in land disputes and other issues.

The President told us that Minister Broomes was transferred to the Natural Resources Ministry because of her vast experience in the mining industry. So why is Minister Broomes not dealing with mining issues? Why has she stopped conducting the ‘Open Day’? And why is she no longer meeting with small miners? Where and to whom are small miners supposed to bring their complaints now?

We were happy when the President transferred Minister Broomes to the Natural Resources Ministry, and we gratefully brought our complaints to her on Wednesdays at the GGMC when she convened an ‘Open Day’ to meet with the public. We know her, and we know that she knows what does happen in the gold bush. Many small miners have gone to her and have had their problems resolved. Why has this successful initiative been abruptly scrapped?

Sir, we voted for change, but we are yet to see that change at the GGMC or in the gold mining sector. Now no one — no one — is looking out for the small miner. No one wants to hear our troubles, and no one wants to address our complaints. Nobody cares!

SMALL MINER