JUNIOR Minister within the Ministry of Natural Resources Simona Broomes and a team from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) visited the Durban Quarries company in Cuyuni- Mazaruni (Region Seven) for an inspection, which ended in a cease work order being lifted.

The quarry was served the order by the GGMC as was directed by Minister Broomes, in March of last year, and since then have not been operating.
According to reports, the cease work order followed Minister Broomes and a GGMC team conducting impromptu inspections at quarry operations in Region Seven. Durban Quarries showed the “most glaring instances of non-compliance” in safety practices, where the company “failed to correct unsafe mining practices despite notices by the GGMC”. Mining was taking place, even though rocks were hazardously hovering on the facing.
However, the minister and the team cited improvements when they revisited the quarry earlier this week and the cease order was subsequently lifted.

“Because of the efforts made, I would ask things be put in place to remove the cease work order and have GGMC continue to monitor as they go along. Based on what I’m seeing as compared to last year, there have been significant improvements,” Broomes said.

Acting Mines Manager at the GGMC, Krishna Ramdass, said “there certainly has been an effort to remedy this from the state it was in March of last year. It hasn’t been completed to the extent of our expectations, even though we have tried with the operator on a number of occasions. We have had several site inspections to help guide them and measure the progress. To date, indeed, some work has been done, but still more is required.”

Minister Broomes urged the operators to comply with regulations since that is the only contention of the team.
“There is no intention to stop the business or cut the flow of business or any such thing. All is asked is that you have a mining licence to do quarry mining and you have to do it in a safe way, in accordance to the regulations. There is no other intention, but for you to just correct yourselves and just move forward,” Broomes said.

After the conversation with the operators, the minister and the GGMC team, a short meeting was held and the decision was made to rescind the cease work order.
However, the operators agreed to address other issues to keep the order lifted.