Dear Editor,

IF a foreign gold mining company wishes to invest in Guyana, we would have no mining land, not even a process of issuing mining land to accommodate such an investment. It seems our Government has decided to exit large-scale gold mining in Guyana.

There is a determined effort by the GGMC to convert all Prospecting Licences(PLs) into Mining Permits(MPs). Despite the GGMC’s own attorney advising against such a move, the Commissioner has thought it fit to seek outside counsel on the matter. The lawyer the Commissioner has chosen for a second opinion is also a miner and has financial interest in converting Prospecting Licences to Mining Permits.  The Commissioner should be made to release the expenses incurred to seek legal advice contradicting the GGMC’s own attorney.

Documents at the GGMC have revealed that most Prospecting Licences issued by the Government are ‘non-compliant,’ a term used by the GGMC to indicate that the holders of such PLs have not paid for them nor have they fulfilled their legal obligations since receiving those lands. The GGDMA is presently lobbying to have the conditions attached to the issuance of PLs abandoned. So after their members received those PLs, received billions of dollars of Government subsidies, ignored their obligations to the Government and Country while maximizing the benefits, the GGDMA is now advocating that there should be no obligations at all, only the benefits.

Now the GGDMA wants this Government to ignore all those binding obligations to facilitate their desire to have all those PLs converted to MPs. There are reports that the GGDMA member who sits on the GGMC board, was challenging and intimidating the GGMC legal adviser at a recent board meeting because the legal adviser advised against the converting of PLs and incidentally, the GGDMA member has his own application for his own PL to be converted.

Guyana does not seem to still have a policy for large-scale mining.  This is because the issuing of PLs was used by Government to incentivize large-scale and foreign investors by setting aside vast areas of land that would make such investments viable. This is the process used by Guyana Gold Fields and Troy Resources.

If our Government has decided to exit large-scale mining they should make it official, abandon the issuing of PLs and change all the policies to suit.  The Government should also stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on overseas trips and mining conventions courting foreign investors, because if the Commissioner succeeds, we would have no mining lands to offer them. This piecemeal approach is only wasting taxpayer’s money while benefitting a select few.

Regards
GGMC Employee