More mining and mineral mapping would pose a grave threat

Feb 09, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Can the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) achieve a 60% increase gold production to 500,000 ounces in 2010? This is the claim made by GGDMA. (Kaieteur News, February 6, 2010). The sweet pill on offer is that some $100 billion will end up inside the Treasury and not outside.
The GGDMA’s projected target for 2009 was 300,000 ounces of gold. The actual, official figure declared represents an increase on the 2008 figure of 17.2% at 305,178 ounces. (SN, January 6, 2010).
This would suggest that the overall impact on Guyana’s economy should have been translated into a steep rise. Added to this is the big hike in the marginal increase in gold prices.
Employment also should have ended up rising fast and stimulated by the huge growth of 17.2% achieved by the mining of gold in 2009.
But the contribution from the gold mining sector seems to have made little dent in reversing the low growth rate projection of 2.6% for the economy in 2009 (GINA. May 8, 2009) and amended to 2.5% in November 2009. The 2009 growth rate was far below the earlier years of 5.1% (2006), 5.4% (2007) and 3.1% (2008). If the GDDMA is projecting itself as a major official player, then their impact seems inconclusive as far as the overall performance of national economy is concerned on gold mining.
Perhaps this may well be due to the flourishing parallel economy, which is allowed to operate without licence and therefore without accountability.
Alfonso claimed that “in 2008, there were some 271 licensed dredges registered with the GGMC but noted that there are approximately 9,000 dredges currently in operation in the mining industry, some of which are being operated by the Brazilians”. (SN. July 10. 09)
The GGDMA has disclosed that 43,000 Guyanese and 30,000 Brazilians are employed in the gold and diamond mining sector. They have also claimed there could be around 27,000 or even far more of additional employees in mining (SN, January 14, 09). The
GGDMA is not known for transparency and accountability and the precise number of those employed within the gold and diamond mining sector is not a matter of real concern.
The 60% projected growth in gold production for 2010, if not irrational, seems to be a figure plucked out from a hat. There will have to be massive investments in the mining sector to yield such a tremendous growth within the industry. In their opaqueness, the GGDMA has disclosed little on the high levels in investments that will be required to create and fund such an enormous capacity for gold production. Little is known also about their employment projections relative to their highly-inflated production level for 2010.
Would the figure for the Brazilian miners employed in the industry remain an under-statement, or will employment continue to flow out of Guyana to the benefit of other nationals? This does not seem to matter much to Government. Even their LCDS seems preoccupied with relying heavily on an influx of personnel from outside to bring it to functionality.
If the present trend is to continue employing more Brazilians in the mining industry, then any real benefits accruing to the Guyanese will be negligible, if not far more damaging.
Then there is the huge drain on the economy from the unlicensed mining activities (SN,
July 10, 2009). Furthermore, Guyana’s pristine forests and its hinterland communities would come under greater threats of pollution, destruction, and extinction, than they have ever faced in all the decades previously.
Mineral resources are a finite commodity and once it has been extracted and removed from the ground, it will not grow back again; unlike the valuable and regenerative resources from forestry growth. Continued mineral exploitation would therefore cease to exist at the point of uneconomic mineral extraction and depletion.
In return the real payback will be widespread pollution, mercury poisoning, and the stifling of organic growth.
The 60% increase in production might be an attractive hard-sell by the GGDMA, while the going is good and gold prices remain relatively high. Gold is not renewable and cannot be exploited ad infinitum, and worse, if gold prices were to take a nose dive.
To blindly persuade the local inhabitants that their real, long-term future would forever depend upon gold mining at peak prices, would be grossly misleading, if not creating delusions and false hopes about their real, long-term future.
An unconcerned Government however, seems far more motivated about grabbing at funding from outside sources. They have squandered much time and money to invite outsiders like the Iranians to come into Guyana to do mapping of Guyana’s mineral resources (Kaieteur News, February 1, 2010). This seems to go against the very ethos of their MOU with regards to forest protection and degradation.
Mapping means that there is a hidden agenda on the discovery and exploitation of Guyana’s mineral resources.
In the same vein, the Iranians have an unquenched thirst for uranium in their pursuit to expand their secretive nuclear ambitions.
Any contract with the Iranians to map Guyana’s minerals resources would effectively be to hand over Guyana’s sovereignty to Iran. It would deliver to the Iranians first-hand knowledge and the precise locations of Guyana’s mineral resources, wherever it can be found to exploit; whether legally or not, and where Guyana’s borders are not scrupulously protected and defended with the same fierce intensity as the borders of Iran, be it on sea or on land.
The long, established trend it seems is for outside interests, including the Brazilians and now the Iranians, to enjoy absolute freedoms and priority over and above the future of the local and the indigenous population of Guyana.
Mac Mahase

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