If the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) succeeds in making a case against the miners charged with illegally mining and destroying roads between Mahdia and North Fork earlier this year, the penalty for the offence could include the confiscation of mining equipment already impounded by the Commission, according to Acting Commissioner William Woolford.
Speaking with Stabroek Business by telephone earlier this week Woolford said that the miners against whom the Commission is seeking to make a case are due to appear in court in January next year and that the Commission will, as part of its case, be seeking the court’s permission not to return the seized equipment if they are found guilty of the offence. He said that the seizure of the equipment which the GGMC was empowered to effect under the law had been carried out with the involvement of the police.
Woolford had said some time ago that the Commission had, up to that time identified twelve miners thought to have been associated with the illegal mining activity. When Stabroek Business spoke with him earlier this week, however, he said that he was not immediately in a position to say how many offenders had been charged and would appear before the courts.
The move by the GGMC to seek the court’s clearance not to return the equipment is part of the package of “stiff penalties” against the miners which Woolford had said the Commission would seek when he spoke with Stabroek Business in August.
And as part of the process of reining in illegal mining practices Woolford told Stabroek Business this week that the GGMC had compiled a list of mining operations that will no longer be issued with certain types of mining licences.
Reports which surfaced in the media earlier this year indicated that the miners, some of whom were not licensed to operate in the area, had been conducting extensive mining activities on the roadway and, in the process, had done extensive damage to the roadway and to pipes already laid to provide water to residents.
The illegal mining activity is believed to have been going on in the area for some time and reports of damage to the roadway first surfaced in July this year following a visit to the area by Works Minister Robeson Benn and a team of mining officials.
Apart from the damage to the roadway the mining activity is also reported to have polluted residents’ water supplies and Minister Benn had ordered that the miners vacate the area within 48 hours. Benn had said that the illegal mining activity had resulted in damage to around three miles of roadway in Region eight, between Mahdia and Salbora.
The GGMC has given an undertaking that it would effect repairs to the damaged roads and pipelines.
In the wake of the incident the police had been called in to effect the seizure of equipment from several miners and Woolford had said that the GGMC would be seeking stiff legal penalties for the transgression.
During his telephone interview with Stabroek Business Woolford restated the GGMC’s position that no permission had been given to the miners to mine the road area.
