BK Quarries Inc. has filed a 500-page lawsuit against the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over the recent granting of four quarry licences to Hadi’s World Inc. The court documents were filed at the Demerara High Court on June 16, 2021, by prominent attorney-at-law Siand Dhurjon after GGMC recently handed 16,502 acres of land to Hadi’s World Inc for quarrying operations. According to documents seen by this newspaper, BK which is listed as the applicant, contends that it is chiefly engaged in the business of quarrying and the selling of the stone and aggregate produced therefrom. The company contends that it employs over 150 persons and pays many millions in taxes each year. BK stated that it is in good financial standing, environmentally responsible and is in material compliance with all laws of Guyana.
During its prospecting operations, BK Quarries Inc had made substantial investments in the, in the sum of over $26,700,000. The applicant sought an update from the GGMC on the status of the renewal application by way of a letter dated February 28, 2018. In the letter, the applicant complained that it had already spent over US$1M on equipment for the anticipated extension at that time.

Against this backdrop, the applicant posited that Hadi’s World Inc. which has no known experience or expertise regarding the running of quarrying operations was granted the quarry licences to the lands. The lawsuit alleges that the board of the GGMC was biased in favour of Hadi’s World Inc’s applications because of a close relationship to one of the company’s director.
The applicant is asking the court to grant an Order of Certiorari to quash the decisions of the GGMC dated June 15, 2021, to grant four quarry licences to Hadi’s World Inc. because those decisions are in breach of their statutory duty, in breach of natural justice, arbitrary, ultra vires, unreasonable, irrational, and unfair, abuse of power, whimsical, capricious, against their own policy and without any legal foundation or authority. The applicant is also seeking an injunction to prevent Hadi’s World from occupying or taking any steps to develop the 16,500 acres of land recently awarded by the GGMC under the four quarrying licences.
Additionally, BK is seeking another Order of Certiorari to quash the decisions of the EPA made on March 21, 2021 and April 16, 2021 which were upheld by the Environmental Assessment Board (E.A.B.) on June 14, 2021, to award four environmental authorisations to Hadi’s World Inc.

Lastly, the applicant is seeking an Order of Mandamus to compel the GGMC to take all steps necessary to see to the favourable processing of BK’s application dated August 16, 2018, for a quarry licence over the area of 9,364 acres designated by the GGMC as LM40: B-1000/000/18, upon the applicant being issued the requisite environmental authorisation by the EPA to conduct quarrying operations on the said area.
BK is contending that despite several objections raised, the GGMC and the EPA took the decision to fully permit and issue the quarrying licences to Hadi’s World Inc, which is owned by Nazar ‘Shell’ Mohamed and had only applied for the licences in December 2020.
The lawsuit seeks to argue that this decision to award a company, which does not own even a single crusher, 16,502 acres of land for quarrying was made although BK Quarries had applied for a quarry licence since August 16, 2018, for a portion of the same area.

PROSPECTING LICENCE
Further, BK Quarries Inc. is contending that they were issued a prospecting licence for the said portion since 2014, a licence which is still in force presently. Additionally, the company has been carrying out exploration and developmental works on the prospecting licence since 2014.
The prospecting licence is for an area located on the left bank of the Mazaruni River in the vicinity of Itaballi and covers 9,364 acres. The purpose of the licence is for the conduct of exploration and developmental activities, the quarrying licence s are for the extraction of rock and production of aggregate.
In the application filed, Dhurjon is seeking to explain that the Notices of Intention to Grant the licences were published in the Official Gazette without the approval of the board of the GGMC as is required under the law.

According to Dhurjon, the EPA illegally waived the requirement for Hadi’s World Inc. to have to perform an assessment of the environmental impact of the four quarrying operations over 16,500 acres of land because the quarry operations ‘would not significantly impact the environment.
The lawsuit seeks to argue that the EPA arrived at this decision despite them knowing that the quarry operations of Hadi’s World would require the clearing of over 1000 acres of vegetation and the use of explosives to destroy the face of the land.
According to the court documents, the company had been in constant communication with the GGMC since 2014 over the progression and development of this project.

PROCESSING
On December 30, 2019, Commissioner of GGMC, Newell Dennison, wrote to Brian Tiwari, the owner of BK Quarries Inc., stating that the application for the quarry at Itaballi was being processed. Dennison even pointed out that the area applied for was “a considerable expanse of land” and that the GGMC would require that the company reduce the acreage being sought.
On January 9, 2020, the company wrote to GGMC confirming a meeting on January 14, 2020, with the commission’s Technical Sub-committee to advise on the way forward concerning the quarrying licence application being processed. The result is that the GGMC, through its Technical Sub-Committee, decided that the size of the area being used to operate under the Quarry Licence was to be reduced by 50 per cent from — 9,364 acres to 4,680 acres.
This recommendation was taken to the Board of Directors of the GGMC on February 21, 2020, where it was approved and entered into the minutes of the meeting.

The requirement that the area should be reduced was accepted by BK Quarries Inc. of 4,500 acres out of the 9,364 acres – this representing a reduction of more than 50 per cent as required by GGMC. On July 2, 2020, GGMC wrote to BK Quarries requesting a map of the reduced area. GGMC said that this information was necessary for the finalisation of the quarrying licence. The updated map and the other requirements were submitted on August 6, 2020.
There was no further communication from GGMC. This prompted a letter from BK Quarries to Commissioner Newell Dennison on December 9, 2020. All this happened before the application from Hadi’s World Inc. was allegedly submitted.

UNDER REVIEW
Meanwhile, on January 20, 2021, Dennison wrote to BK Quarries informing the company that “all quarry licences extant and otherwise are to be reviewed by the Commission’s Board of Directors.” That letter continued, “Your further co-operation and patience is requested while this action by the Board is being expedited.”
However, on February 6, 2021, as published in the Official Gazette, BK Quarries observed that GGMC had published its Notice of Intention to grant four quarry licences to Hadi’s World Inc. of Lot 29 Lombard Street, Georgetown over the areas which were covered by the 2014 PL B-70 and the 2018 quarrying licence application.
BK immediately protested to GGMC noting that the award was unfair, unlawful, and unacceptable. Several letters from the company and its attorneys to the GGMC on this matter went unanswered during this period.

A few days after the GGMC gazetted the Notice of Intention to grant, the EPA posted a notice in the daily newspapers that they had waived the requirement for the conduct on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for all four of the quarry licences being issued to Hadi’s World Inc. for the 16,502 acres.
This notice was to notify the public and allow 30 days for any objections to the issuance of the EPA authorisation to Hadi’s World Inc. According to the applicant, by law, candidates must obtain an environmental authorisation and submit the same to the GGMC before being considered for approval. In this case, the GGMC had published the Notice of Intention to grant long before the applicant had the EPA authorisation.

BK Quarries Inc. also objected to the EPA, notifying them that the area being applied for by Hadi’s World Inc. is currently held by the company under Prospecting Licence B-70 and was in the process of being converted to a quarry licence since 2018. The company further objected on environmental grounds against the waiver of the EIA based on the expected negative environmental impacts associated with stone quarrying.
The objections raised by BK Quarries Inc. regarding the ownership of the area and the need for detailed environmental assessment were all dismissed by the EPA as ‘inconsequential’ on June 15, 2021.

However, the next day a ceremony was held for the signing of the four quarries licences along with the permits, which were then personally handed over to the principles of Hadi’s World Inc.
BK is alleging that it did not benefit from equality of treatment under the law by state agencies which is in breach of the Constitution. The company contends that the GGMC had “a serious” concern that it could not actually use and occupy some 9,000 acres for quarrying operations but Hadi’s World Inc. was granted licences to use over 16,500 acres for a similar purpose.
According to Dhurjon, Hadi’s World Inc. told the government entities that its quarrying operations would utilise less than 1,000 acres but was still given way more.