Bartica hit by gold woes

-small miners need land, fewer Brazilians

Once developing at a frenetic pace, the downswing in the gold industry has slowed business in Bartica and residents say that landlordism is one of the main contributors to the slump.

In spite of the current gold prices, if land was available, many small miners would go back into the goldfields to work, several residents told Stabroek News during a visit to the Region Seven mining community on Saturday. “Everywhere you go in Bartica, you can see dredge park up cause small miners ain’t getting place to work,” Mikey Primus, a butcher, told Stabroek News. “The big miners get all the land,” he said.

Another resident explained that several big miners hold large amounts of land and they can decide whether or not a small miner gets to work on the land. He said that usually, the land holder charges a standard fee upfront, which can be around $1 million or more, then an additional percentage on every ounce of gold produced. With the drop in gold prices as well as fuel prices, many small miners –including some who rented land from the land holders and operated several excavators- were unable to make enough to cover expenses and have dropped out or scaled back, he said.

No longer in service: Abandoned ATVs outside a mechanic shop in Bartica.
No longer in service: Abandoned ATVs outside a mechanic shop in Bartica.

“Some fancy people with some fancy big money getting all the place,” Primus said.

A recent Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) report had said that there is a tendency to “landlordism,” which has taken over the mining industry and called on the GGMC to tackle the reform of the law to treat with “the growing menace of landlordism and non-beneficial occupancy” which it said were strangling the potential growth of the mining sector.

Residents told Stabroek News that many small miners had dropped out of the sector and are now operating taxis, mini-buses or truck transport services based in the community. In addition, many Brazilians – who made up a significant portion of consumers in the community – have left. One man estimated that just about a quarter of the Brazilian population has remained in Bartica. Another said that among other things, crime and police harassment contributed to the exodus of the Brazilians. He said that he had personally witnessed police ranks in Bartica harassing Brazilians and taking away their money.

The exodus of miners and Brazilians from the sectors has impacted on businesses in the community. “You’re not getting the support like before,” Primus said. He said that he has relatives in the goldfields and they order less meat and other goods. He said that it was the small miners who mostly supported businesses in the community as the bigger ones usually have their own supply chain.

He noted that usually persons would send gold rather than cash as payment for items but for the same amount of gold, with the drop in price, they get less. He said while previously, one pennyweight of gold could be sold for $11 000, now it is about $8500 or $9500.

Another vendor Angela Lindore said that miners were not buying as much as before since the price of gold dropped. “Some drop out because expenses like fuel too high,” she added. She said that she was a vendor in Bartica for five years and did a lot more business before as compared to now. Another vendor added that some miners had simply abandoned their dredges in the jungle because they did not have the money to bring them out.

She noted too that the unavailability of land to small miners was a major factor in miners exiting the sector. She added that the number of Brazilians in the community had lessened. “They used to be a good support to everybody,” she declared.

“Business is not so booming as before,” Derrick Ramlakhan said. He cited similar reasons for the slump, all tied to gold prices and the unavailability of land for small miners. “Business is still going but not as booming as before,” he said.

One man who repaired ATVs said that business had declined 75% for him. He said that he used to attract a lot of business from Brazilians but less now. “A lot of them moving out,” he said. He recalled that he used to service about a dozen ATVs every week but is now lucky to get 12 ATVs to service for the month. He pointed out that mining is an expensive business and noted that the price for a brake pad for an ATV was $22,000 as compared to $5,000 for a car.

He also noted that “most of the land going out to a certain group of people” and if these land holders do not give permission to small miners to work, they cannot work.

President Donald Ramotar on Saturday during a PPP/C campaign meeting in Bartica acknowledged the concerns of small miners about the availability of land. “We will ensure that new areas are opened so the small miners can have an opportunity to get their lands to do mining and more than that we will review some of the large holdings that many of the big, big people have and not using them, we will review to ensure that the ordinary people also got an opportunity to earn a good living from this sector as well,” he had said.

Small miners have long lamented that they are unable to access lands for mining and only big miners were able to access land.