-several receive mining land at GGMC lottery

SMALL miners were empowered with mining lands during a lottery which was conducted by the Ministry of Natural Resources, through the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) on Friday.

Miners who benefited from the exercise were those who had applied for land and were awaiting the allocation. Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, said lands were not being issued fast enough so, in an effort to fast track the process, he had written to GGMC requesting a lottery be held. “We have been working on it since the beginning of this year…I met persons who asked for access to mining lands all the time and I made a commitment to get it to them,” said the minister during the lottery exercise at the Girl Guides’ pavillion on Friday.

Despite the political environment, he said, the ministry will not deny anyone access to lands but will instead empower persons through mining lands. “This is our commitment to you, to empower persons…this is just the Georgetown leg. We will go into all six mining districts and distribute lands,” said Trotman.

Although the lands which were distributed have good mining prospects, he said there was no guarantee that they will find lots of gold, but the miners must be hopeful. The lottery process was intended to be fair, so persons, who had an interest in one or more of the six mining districts, were asked to pull their blocks from a box.

Among the mining areas are Berbice, Mazaruni, Cayuni, North West, Potaro and the Rupununi. Persons who pulled blocks had signaled their interest in a particular block through a prior application. Participants were asked to complete a registration form and pay a participation, non-refundable, fee of $5,000.

Miners who benefited from the lottery were privy to special conditions which would apply to their block. Some of the participants questioned whether access roads to the mining lands would be provided or were available.

In response, Commissioner of the GGMC, Newell Dennison, said there was no guarantee that there would be access roads but, he urged miners to develop their own access ways once they receive the blocks. Most of the areas, which were included in the lottery, were cancelled properties and as such Dennison said in some cases there might be access ways.

He said the objective of the process was to help miners to develop their capacity and enrich themselves with opportunities. “We are trying to make sure that what has been done should not lead to you confronting each other…we want to create access to lands so that you could do your own enterprise…take full charge of that,” said Dennison. Despite the questions and enquiries, miners were clearly satisfied with the process because some of them have been waiting for years to get access to mining lands.