In recent years, gold mining in Guyana has drawn attention to itself for more reasons than the fact that the industry has prospered on account of continually rising world market prices for gold. Other reasons include official concerns over operational practices that seriously compromise the environment, the smuggling of gold and, in recent years, the heightened level of violence in the mining regions of the country.
By establishing a new Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, the government has sent a signal that it intends to exercise closer scrutiny over the sector, the principal given reason being the need to bring gold mining operations in line with stricter environmental regulations; though one would expect that the ministry will now be lending attention to all of the various issues affecting the sector.
The advent of the new ministry now means that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) the entity that has historically been responsible for regulating the gold-mining sector will now fall directly under it; a circumstance that is indicative of a greater measure of political scrutiny of the gold industry. Over the years the GGMC has been operating with limited resources, so much so that its ability to effectively enforce the mining regulations, particularly those relating to proper environmental practices has been severely constrained and here again one expects that the new mining ministry will be seeking to strengthen the capacity of the GGMC to perform its monitoring functions.
Not all the miners – or even the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) – are entirely comfortable with the additional official attention which the sector has been attracting and the argument has been made that it is the high returns from the industry as much as concerns over environmental practices that has triggered the additional attention. It would now seem to be the case that the setting up of a ministry specifically responsible for mining would mean that the GGMC will now be working to directives issued by that ministry though just how the division of responsibilities will pan out – in real terms, that is – is still far from clear.
The new mining ministry has already sent a number of clear signals that it has taken control of the sector the most recent one being the directive regarding the requirement that miners submit periodic detailed returns in order to continue working in the sector. Some miners, apart from being unmindful of being put to the trouble of making those returns available to government, have made no secret of their belief that the new regulation is part of an incremental official process aimed at tightening the administration’s grip on the industry to the extent that it can have a much greater say in the operations on the ground in mining areas.
It is of course no secret that in recent years there have been several new investments in the gold-mining sector by individuals and companies which, hitherto, had no interest in the sector whatsoever. The point to be made here is that the government, arguably, would consider it to be an advantage to determine which potential investors secure access to the sector hence the reason for its greater scrutiny.
Then there is the sudden, recent clampdown on illegal mining which appears to have affected large numbers of Brazilian miners and which, while desirable if the operations of the sector are to be regularized, is more than a trifle bewildering in its suddenness. After all it does not appear that the GGMC had made any really vigorous efforts in the past to weed out the illegal miners and more than that we are told that one of the main reasons why so many Brazilians were mining illegally here was because the Ministry of Home Affairs takes an inordinately long time to issue work permits and that the Brazilians simply take their chances – so to speak – until the work permit comes along. Of course, while they operate illegally the Brazilians have reportedly been soft targets for shakedowns by policemen who demand generous considerations in exchange for ignoring their infractions.
All of this and more have made for a decidedly uneasy relationship between the miners and the government. Fears – irrational or otherwise – have arisen that once the new ministry finds its feet it will become tougher for small and medium scale miners, particularly, to meet the costs and administrative requirements associated with their operations and of course there are the inevitable rumours that favours for the privileged and well-connected might transform the sector in ways that might not work to the advantage of small miners.
All of these are concerns that have been expressed by some miners, privately in most instances, though many of them have become increasingly open in voicing their concerns. One particularly unfortunate conclusion which appears to have been arrived at by some miners – though GGDMA President Patrick Harding insists that mining cannot be pursued in isolation from the environment – is that the thicket of environmental and administrative considerations that now govern the sector are in fact designed to reshape the sector in a manner that facilitates stricter state control over access to gold.
While, therefore, the new ministry of Mining and the Environment is expected to pursue its mandate which includes the creation of an improved enabling environment in which the sector can prosper it must bear in mind too its obligation to ensure fair and reasonable opportunity for modest operations to thrive alongside larger ones so that access to the returns from the sector do not become limited to the rich and powerful and to those investors with the requisite political connections.
