The Marudi Mountain gold mining claim in Region Nine, which is now at the centre of a heated row over illegal mining, was prospected on since 1990, but has not been brought into production despite promises from a number of companies.
Gold has been extracted from the claim by small miners operating illegally but who say they have made sales to the Guyana Gold Board, despite earlier claims by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) that none of them had made any declarations and that there were no records of production.
The reported sales are now the subject of an official investigation even as questions have been raised about whether the mines commission is prudently monitoring prospecting companies and ensuring that they don’t tie up productive areas for no good reason.
Four years after the Government of Guyana granted Romanex a licence for alluvial gold mining at Marudi, the company’s licence is now under review, since from that time to now there has been no mining or exploration activity by the company.
