By Naomi Parris

~says Policy Forum Guyana

IN support of its contention that mining is an essential service the Guyana Gold & Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) has asserted that Guyana’s much-needed foreign exchange earnings would decline and that could cause widespread economic problems for the country, “We are also essential because we contribute consistently to over 55 percent of the foreign currency earnings.”

However, Policy Forum Guyana noted that no matter what contribution the industry makes to export earnings, it is not a criterion of ‘essential.’

“A mother earning money to feed her children by selling plantains in La Penitence market has a more serious claim to being an essential service than the gold industry, as do the many school-feeding programmes which have had to cease,” the forum stated.
The concept of ‘essential service’ was originally coined to identify those services – water, electricity, policing and health—which every citizen needs. In many countries they were — or are — subsidised by the state in order to ensure access to them by all, regardless of income.

“Rather than a service, the mining industry is so ill-regulated that apart from preventing any accurate assessment of its contribution to the economy, it poses a major threat to the well-being of all interior communities,” the organisation stated.

Additionally, the organisation stated while government agencies have begun to take steps to address essential businesses, the GGDMA is still to cooperate.

The organisation in its observations noted that administration of the sector remains sufficiently chaotic, and that the massive sale of public assets for private gain is never sufficiently understood. Individuals are granted hundreds of permits which they have neither the resources nor capacity to exploit, but “landlord” them out to smaller operators.

“What is beyond question, however, is that an activity whose purpose is to make a small number of wealthy men even wealthier cannot be categorised as an essential service. The COVID-19 National Task Force must remove this anomaly,” the organisation stated.