Miners’ president resigns amidst growing differences with executive

Dec 02, 2010 News

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-Bartica considers parallel body

By Leonard Gildarie

Less than six months after being elected as President of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA), Fred McWilfred has resigned over growing differences with management over his role.
The split with the association could signal the formation of a separate miners’ group to be based in Bartica. That mining community’s support of McWilfred had been instrumental in his election to become President for the association in June.
His resignation would also come at a time when Government is reviewing a report of measures that will provide greater oversight by authorities over the gold and diamond mining industry.
In his resignation letter, yesterday, to the GGDMA’s Secretary, Terrence Adams, McWilfred blasted the association which seemed to representing only a few selected miners.
Kaieteur News was told that a special meeting has been convened by the executive of the association for today to discuss the resignation of the President.
Selected few
“Unfortunately that is not the disposition of the present leadership of the GGDMA which is obviously very comfortable with the façade of ‘Industrywide Representation’ while in fact protecting and promoting the interests of a selected few.”
McWilfred was one of the main organizers of street protest in Bartica which saw that community closing down for a day back in January by miners who were worried about proposed mining measures by the government.
“I must confess that the purely ceremonial nature of the presidency of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association and the resistance of the deeply entrenched present leadership to positive change was, in light of public pronouncements about “unity and total representation”, surprising to me and the Bartica Miners Committee which  persuaded me to seek election to that position.
We were convinced that my election to the Presidency would bring about changes that would enable the GGDMA to effectively represent all miners and mining communities,” the Bartician said in his letter yesterday.
Another association?
“I therefore hereby tender my resignation as President of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association. I wish you and your Management Committee well and will now seek other ways and means of representing myself and like-minded miners as we seek to protect and sustain medium and small scale gold and diamond mining in Guyana.”
McWilfred pointed out that in the last management meeting of the association that he attended, he sought clarification of his role as President since the rules are “very vague”.

“The Management Committee, at that meeting, confirmed that it had, prior to my election as President, agreed, and the General Membership had confirmed  that the Executive Director was  the “…sole executive authority of the association  and the only one that was authorized  to speak officially on its  behalf.”
McWilfred also claimed that the Management Committee informed him that he was only required to be Chairman of Management Committee meetings and that for all other matters his involvement in the management of the association was similar to that of all other members of the Committee.
“I was further told that my presence was not even necessary for the holding of any meeting of the Association.” Kaieteur News understands that on November 18, McWilfred had attended the GGDMA’s monthly meeting where he stated his objections over what he perceived to be the extensive powers of the Executive Director.
He reportedly requested two days to think about his future in the organization.
Ultimatum
Kaieteur News was told that on November 23, GGDMA’s Executive Director, Edward ‘Tony’ Shields, wrote McWilfred requesting confirmation whether he wanted to remain as a member of the Executive Committee of the association.
Contacted yesterday, McWilfred confirmed that he had tendered his resignation and would now be directing his energies of revitalizing the Bartica Concerned Miners Committee that would be representing the interests of small and medium scale miners across the country.
Yesterday also, Vice President of the GGDMA, Charles DaSilva, expressed surprise at the resignation and said that a meeting scheduled for today would probably now be discussing it.
Questioned as to the reasons for the resignation, the official put this to a difference of personality between McWilfred and Shields.
The official also pointed out that McWilfred, who did not come through the ranks of GGDMA like other Presidents, had his own ideas about the running of the association.
“He wanted to do things his own way. This is not how the GGDMA do things. We have a body…a vibrant association and there are rules.”
Yesterday also, Simone Broomes, an outspoken miner from Bartica, said that the community is glad to have all of McWilfred back and that he will be an integral part of organizing better representation for that area.
“We are glad to have our McWilfred back whole.”
Following the miners’ protest actions in Bartica in January, President Bharrat Jagdeo had met with stakeholders in February where he extended the life of what has been called the Special Land Use Committee (SLUC).
That committee had met several times before it completed a report last month on new mining measures for the President’s consideration.
McWilfred has been a member of SLUC which is headed by Minister of Public Works, Robeson Benn.

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