THE National Mining Syndicates on Tuesday commenced two days of protest action pressing claims for permission to mine on lands promised to them even as they level allegations of corruption against unnamed officials of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC).

About 100 members of mining syndicates paced Brickdam just outside of the GGMC Tuesday calling on officials to “stop the backdoor arrangements” in processing applications for lands by syndicates, as they outlined several hindrances to them receiving documentation to begin mining.

An executive of the body, Judith David-Blair, a former PNCR Member of Parliament told the media that although the syndicate initiative by government through the Ministry of Natural Resources is a ray of hope for small miners and intended to give them opportunities, they are still waiting for those lands after more than a year. “This is an initiative through which the small miners can be given lands to work after years of being frustrated by landlordism. We need lands to work and this initiative is the thing that we see that will work and we’re happy that the government has endorsed this initiative,” Blair said.

She said however: “after making several applications for land for over a year now, we have not been given a formal word or documentation that would lead us into mining and not prospecting. For after a year it’s very hard because first as small miners we have a multitude of people, hundreds of thousands of families with us that are fighting for bread and butter today. And all we know is mining, and that’s what we wanna do and dredges have been laid up for over years and now through this initiative of the syndicates we’re hoping that our lands will be processed.”

She recalled that during a meeting with Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, on March 29 the minister assured the syndicates that priority would be given to the processing of their land applications, but the contrary is being manifested before their eyes. “He said that he endorsed and he agreed with 90% of the stuff that we brought to him and that we will have priority in having our lands processed. But this is far from so right now because we’re in a situation where some of the lands that we’ve applied for, we’re seeing being processed through a gazette ‘special order’ of the minister whereby other people were given the lands that we applied for and we’re very concerned,” she stated.

The syndicates are calling on the minister to hear the cries of the small miners who have been frustrated for a lifetime by landlordism in the mining industry, where some medium scale operators have exploited them to prospect lands many times and as soon as they discovered large amounts of gold, expelled them from mining the lands even after they would have paid for positions.

Landlords have also given them positions on mined-out lands, taking whatever little monies they owned as they (small miners) blindly made unprofitable investments. “We wanna say to the minister this morning that he has to hear the cry of the small miners, the plight of the small miners and he has to pay attention to us because while a few will be benefitting, the masses are still in distress and woeful and we’re waiting on him to make a decision,” the woman miner explained.

She echoed too that the syndicates are dissatisfied with the processing of their applications by the GGMC, which they label as ‘slothful’. Some syndicates have applied for lands more than a year ago but still have not received formal documentation, while some applications are misplaced within the GGMC’s Land Management Unit, where such applications are being processed and approved.

Contacted on the issue GGMC Commissioner, Newell Dennison, said he would offer no comments on the issue. “I am of the view that those issues were issues that were aired to the minister directly and I am of the view that it is not my remit to speak on that. I have no comment to make,” Dennison told the Guyana Chronicle.