Gold Board closes Bartica branch, police probe tampering racket

Apr 05, 2014 News

An entire sub-office of the Guyana Gold Board has been closed and police are investigating several staff members over the alleged tampering of gold bought from miners.
The scheme may have cost Government tens of millions of dollars in diverted taxes and royalties.
According to sources close to the Guyana Gold Board, raw gold being sold have to be tested for its purity. The purer the gold; the higher the price.

Several Gold Board staffers are being questioned over an alleged racket to tamper with gold bought from miners.

It is believed that staff members allegedly took kickbacks to record higher purity levels after the mandatory density level tests are conducted. This in turn led to miners being paid more.
It is alleged that the staffers and miners collaborated with others from Georgetown in the scheme.
At least four staffers from the Bartica branch and one from the Georgetown office were reportedly being questioned. Bartica is located up the Essequibo River.
Yesterday, Natural Resources Minister, Robert Persaud, admitted that an investigation was underway and that the matter was being considered a serious one.
The Guyana Gold Board said, it has convened a meeting with the Ministry and representatives of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association to assess the situation.
Bartica, considered a gateway to the interior and hub of mining activities, has been conducting significant trading in gold for years and remains one of the main sub-office for the Guyana Gold Board.
The closure of the office is bound to have impacts and miners and traders will have to seek alternative measures which involved the very real considerations of security.
The incident involving tampering and staffers is not new. In early 2010, a manager of the Guyana Gold Board was sacked and a probe launched following the sale of a substantial quantity of gold said to be tainted with silver.
That manager, too, was based at Bartica.
Kaieteur News had reported then that the gold sold may have been in the vicinity of four kilograms and valued at over $25M. The entity had reportedly lost $3M.
Back then, Prime Minister, Sam Hinds, who was charged with the mining portfolio, said that in a number of cases involving the Essequibo trader, a quantity of gold sold was only tested in part when all the different pieces should have been analysed.
It was found that the pieces that were tested showed high purity levels and were bought. However, later tests found that a greater percentage of the gold sold were not of the desired level.
The GGB reportedly incurred a substantial loss as a result.
In 2009, a senior laboratory technician was reportedly sent home for mis-appropriating a quantity of gold.