High hopes for another year of record production in the country’s gold industry are doing little to conceal the escalating tensions between government and the sector over what the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) perceives as a battle by gold miners to stave off government’s attempts to tighten its control over the sector.
Former GGDMA Executive Director Edward Shields, who currently serves as a consultant to the mining body, told Stabroek Business in an exclusive and frank interview earlier this week that there were several “pressing issues” on the “agenda” of the local mining community which required definitive pronouncements from government.
According to Shields, simmering tensions between government and the gold mining industry arising out of the former’s assertion that the mining of gold must be informed by
