(BUSINESS EDITORIAL)
If it seems as though fingers are frequently pointed at the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) over the surfeit of harmful practices in the gold-mining sector that continue to injure the physical health of the host communities and damage the physical environment, that is only because it is the GGMC – in the final analysis – that is responsible for enforcing the regulations that govern mining practices.
And while, from all accounts the GGMC would appear to be up against it in terms of its lack of capacity to effectively police the country’s far-flung mining regions, that fact does not absolve the Commission of the consequences of its shortcomings.
Of course, we concede the point made by World Wildlife Fund Country Director Dr. Patrick Williams that the GGMC alone cannot be expected to police mining practices and that the other stakeholders – including the host communities and the miners themselves – have roles to play in this regard.
The problem with this argument is that whenever it is made the host communities respond by pointing to what they say is a lack of any real clout in the sector. As far as the miners themselves are concerned the fact of the matter is that some of them have been guilty of such gross malpractices that it would be foolhardy, to say the least, to rely on them to play a policing role; so that at the end of the day the GGMC remains the only ‘reliable’ policeman in the sector.
