Two legitimate gold miners operating separate mining claims in the interior have responded with skepticism to the recent official undertaking given by Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat that government will continue to set its face against illegal mining.
Speaking recently on the occasion of the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission’s (GGMC) forty-second Anniversary, the Natural Resources Minister proffered a commitment that government will redouble efforts to stem both the loss of revenue to the public treasury and the damage resulting from the application of environmentally questionable methods in many illegal mining operations, though the two miners, both of whom agreed to speak with the Stabroek Business on condition of anonymity, asserted that it would be impossible for government to persuade anyone who understands what one described as the “bottom line” of gold mining that it is serious about stemming the tide of the practice.
While Bharrat was quoted in the state media as saying that illegal mining continues to lead to significant loss of revenue for the country as well as the continual destruction of the environment, both miners told this newspaper that a point had long been reached where the sheer amounts of money earned from illegal mining had meant that the economic and environmental consequences for the country as a whole had long become secondary matters to those involved in the plunder.
One of the miners told the Stabroek Business that it was important to make the point that the matter of illegal mining was not a partisan political issue. “Politically it cuts across who is in government and who is not. Illegal mining is basically a gift available to whichever government is in office and all governments use it. This is not about one political party or another. It is an across-the-board thing and the organizations that are supposed to manage gold mining actually help to enable the illegal process.” Asked about the Natural Resources Minister’s stated concern over the loss of revenue to the state, the second miner said that Guyana might be approaching the point where that might not matter at all. “I can see us reaching a point where revenue going to the state from gold mining will matter less and less. The earnings we get from oil and gas will more than compensate for whatever money we lose from gold,” he added.
Both miners are of the view that the continued proliferation of illegal gold mining persists because it enjoys what one of them described as “some sort of official clearance. You might be surprised to know that despite the Minister’s noise about government being against illegal gold mining, It is into an issue on the ground itself. It really is a matter of who gets what out of it.”
The Natural Resources Minister is reported as saying the rising prominence of oil will not mean that the gold mining industry will not be placed on the back burner. “He is right, but not in the way that people are thinking,” one of the two miners said. What will happen is that once oil comes fully on stream in terms of the money we get from it, gold will get less and less attention and that would mean that the illegal people will have even greater control because the officials wouldn’t care.”
Asked about what has become the widely circulated concerns about the environmental effects of illegal mining the two miners believe that the authorities were taking advantage of the fact that much of the environmental damage and degradation is occurring in remote parts and not in the full view of the entire country. “When people die from mercury poisoning they die quietly, not too many people outside of that situation knows. There is no chance to complain or to protest. It would be difficult to make a case – say – against the government or against whoever is doing the illegal mining. There are other situations in which illegal mining operations carry risks but who is there to see? When miners are covered in pits who is there to say the truth? Both miners are of the view that in order to remove the scourge of corruption that affects the gold mining industry it will be necessary not just the revamp the operating structure of the GGMC “to make it more transparent and to make high officials accountable,” but also to “take control of the operating aspects of the industry entirely out of the hands of politicians. “The problems and the illegal practices arise when people get to know that politicians are involved and you can go to one official or another official and get things done or you can do wrong things and get away with it,” one of the miners told the Stabroek Business.
