On Friday, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, said that the administration takes all the credit for what the mining industry is today. “We’re unashamedly proud and take all the plaudits for what the mining industry has become over the years. Where we took it and where we are today,” he told reporters at his post-cabinet press conference (SN, January 30).
Presumably Dr Luncheon is also “unashamedly proud” of the current state of protection of state reserve land, policing and security, law and order and drugs trafficking. Such an audacious claim as he made shows how far the bar has finally dropped when it comes to measuring government achievements. Only those inebriated with power, if not with contempt, can indulge in blatant disrespect for transparency and accountability to the ordinary citizens.
Prime Minister Sam Hinds had had first-hand knowledge of the devastating pollution left behind by the Brazilians on a recent visit to the Barlow Landing in the Mazaruni area, according to miner Stanislaus Jardine. He claimed that out of the list of the top 40 registered producers in 2008, no Brazilian mining operation was listed, and 80% of local gold production in 2008 was from registered Guyanese operations (SN, July, 10, ’09).
Afro Alfonso the former President of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association noted that out of some 9000 dredges operating in Guyana only 271 were licensed and registered as at 2008. The Brazilians, with better mechanical and technical capabilities, are able to produce significantly more gold, which is not sold locally according to Stanislaus Jardine.
305,178 troy ounces of gold is the official gold production figure for 2009, which includes gold production from only 271 licensed dredges. It is now left to the imagination as to the staggering amount of gold that some 9000 unlicensed dredges can produce and then vanish into thin air. This would suggest that the vast amount of gold produced and unaccounted for, could be exceedingly high and in multiples of ten times the above 2009 figure. This is in the face of the devastating pollution and mercury contamination that the Guyanese people must face. This also raises fundamental questions about the real purpose of the mining industry and where all the invisible gold revenue is going? It is certainly not going into the pockets of Guyana’s poor miners.
If this is the kind record that Dr Luncheon is “unashamedly proud” about, then what kind of future is he holding out for the people of Guyana? He may be singing the tune of the multinationals like Rusal, Omai and Barama, but obviously not that of the poor miners trying to eke out a living in Bartica.
Protecting the future of the Amerindian communities in the Norway-Guyana MOU, was at the insistence of the Government of Norway and not out of the humanitarian concerns by the government. If the future of the poor miners in Guyana was of any relevance, the memorandum would have sought to secure a better future for them and their children in Guyana and not necessarily connected with the mining industry. Prime Minister Sam Hinds had offered them very little following his visit to the Mazaruni.
Would acting Prime Minister Robert Persaud and his friends do the same thing for the people of Bartica on their visit? If the government intends to impose a six-month’s notice on them prior to mining, then they must get off their high horse and offer these people a far more realistic and rewarding future in exchange for their LCDS.
The Prime Minister might wish to recoup the apparently vast fortune from illegal mining that seems to be draining out from the national economy. This in turn could be spent on the poor miners and gearing them up for a new and far better life under their new LCDS.
Yours faithfully,
Mac Mahase
