Gold Smuggling in Guyana had been institutionalized for a lot of Years

Dec 03, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
The history of the modern Gold Mining Industry in Guyana is synonymous with gold smuggling. From the very first day of Golden Star (subsidiary of Cambior Inc) setting up operations in Guyana, the plan to evade royalties began. The Guyana Government was cheated not only on royalties and excise taxes, but on dividends.
The late President Hoyte addressed a meeting at the Windows-on-the-World restaurant in New York City (107th Floor, WTC) in the summer of 1991 to tell the world of his progress in transforming the socialist-strapped Guyanese economy into a free market economy. One of the Hoyte’s major highlights was the progress of a new industry, gold-mining. He cited production figures, and for emphasis said: “That is what we know about, we have no idea how much was smuggled out.”
Here was the President of Guyana speaking to a world audience that included the U.S Assistant Secretary of State, Sally Cowal, and he was suggesting openly that gold was smuggled out of Guyana. A publicly-traded Canadian-registered company, whose shares trade on the NYSE and Canadian stock exchanges had begun huge mining operations in Guyana in the late 1980s.
Sometime in 1995, I worked as a yellow cab driver in New York City. Entered a passenger who told me he lived in Seattle, Washington. “Where are you from?” he asked.
As soon as he heard Guyana, he became excited at the prospect of talking of his foreign adventures and began calling out several names of Ministers and the former head of the Army, who then worked as head of Security for Golden Star. “How did you know this country so well?” I asked. “You’ve got to be some kind of Intelligence Officer connected with Western Embassies in Georgetown,” I teased.
A revelation popped out. “I was the guy they hired to fly out the gold.” There began a not-so-rare event where much intelligence is gathered of secret operations in exotic places around the world. Only in a New York City yellow cab. This pilot revealed to me that he flew over 50-flights laden with gold out of the country. And, this took place over a five-year period that covered both Hoyte’s and Cheddi Jagan’s second-coming to power in 1992.
I recognized it was a rare gem of intelligence I had just received. But what can I do with it? Who in the Guyana Government would listen? And, who would act?
A major responsibility of any government anywhere in the world is to be a good custodian of its natural resources, on behalf of the citizens of the nation. When a government neglects that responsibility they are both reckless and irresponsible – as well as potentially being corrupt.
This gold smuggling business had been institutionalized for all the years Golden Star operated in the country. They operated with impunity.
This latest news of an US$11million heist of smuggled Guyana gold on a Guyana-registered ship in Curacao was not the first. And, the Guyana Government spokesmen don’t have a clue. Government officials are confused as to whether it is legally-shipped gold (“GG does not authorize such shipment by boat”); not realizing that smuggled gold would leave by any means necessary. Another government official talks of “zero tolerance” of gold smuggling. The citizens may ask: Where are the customs-controlling system and licensing system? – and would say, What a joke!
How does a government ensure it collects all its royalties and excise taxes? Of course, by having “better control” – licensed and supervised operations. Forty-years ago I worked at a company called Booker-BDH at La penitence, Georgetown. This company manufactured over two dozen pharmaceutical products. Posted like a sentry in the manufacturing plant was a Customs official, who watched and recorded every unit of the product manufactured – and the company had to pay up all its due excise taxes, down to the last unit of the product.
Government needs to have similar control over the gold-mining industry.
Mike Persaud

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Gold Smuggling in Guyana had been institutionalized for a lot of Years

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