GGMC is in corrupt collusion with the rich and powerful

Dec 27, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
Pursuant to the anti-corruption slogan that has gained traction in recent months I’ve decided that it is most apposite at this time to make known my frustration or perhaps, even better, to expose what I believe to be a corrupt collusion between one of the most powerful state agencies and an equally powerful individual, to tussle from my arms what should have been a legitimately and easily attainable mining claims. The state sponsored goliath that I have referred to above is the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (hereinafter GGMC) and for the moment, the individual of insatiable appetite I shall treat as Person A. Without further ado, I have set forth the matter as I understand it to be below.
In February 2015, I had set about prospecting by licenses and had located several land claims for mining on one of the many forgotten and uninhabited islands in the Essequibo region. Pursuant to the guidelines set out in Part 1&2 of the mining regulations and the inaccessibility of the area, I had expended substantial monies in the hope that faithful and strict compliance therewith would attract efficient and reliable procedural execution. In this connection, I had the same claims verified by an officer of GGMC and I got about the other preparatory business, patiently awaiting the expiry of a maximum ninety (90) day period for the grant to mining licenses. However, since then more than 293 days have elapsed and I am still awaiting the grant, and in fact, a pebble of reward for my naivety and belief that there exists any justice in adherence to Guyanese law and order. Instead, not only am I not convinced that this delay is as a result of a procedural glitch, but further I am now led to believe that it has been occasioned by a corrupt scheme between the agents and by extension the agency of GGMC, and ‘person A’, to wrestle from my grips these hard-found claims.
Mostly recently, upon an inquiry into the status of my application, I was told by the chief surveyor of GGMC, Mr. McKenzie, that the granting of my license had been placed on hold because Person A’, who holds the licenses to mine in the surrounding river, had made an objection, on the grounds that the grant of licenses to mine in the river had impliedly given him a grant of licenses for land mining on the said island. This sort of manifest nonsense was exacerbated even further when I learnt upon inquiry that the agency treats the water and land mining regimes separately, and the licenses of each contain terms that are very different in their obligations, so that it seems ludicrous that a license for water mining could have impliedly contained terms for land mining! Thereafter, my inquisitive nature led me to learn that an ‘objection’ can only be made procedurally after the claims have to been published in the national gazette, and as I have already said, the license is yet to be granted much less published in the national gazette, so that this ‘objection’ must be legally misconceived. Once more, no more than a superficial check revealed that even if this was the case, the island claims would have been made null and void pursuant to its violation of Part II, 8 and 10 of GGMC’s mining
regulations. A letter was addressed to my representative attorney by ‘Person A’ which adduced documents to show that he had held licenses, as I had believed, to the riverbed alone. There was not a single supporting document, neither licenses, receipt nor gazetted publication, which show that he had possessed the land claims. Therefore, as I had suspected, the purported ‘objection’ to the grant of licenses was wholly misconceived. Egregiously and much to my astonishment, on the 28th of November, 2015, I purchased a copy of the official gazette and voila! Therein, I noticed that there was an advertisement with intention to grant the said land claims to ‘Person A’. Additionally, the purported grant sought to confer a licenses for an area in excess of over 300 acres, which is more than ten times greater than the 25.7 maximum permissible acreage for a land claim and as I understand legally null and void.
As a result, I am only left to reasonably conclude that this plot is but a small event in what appears to be an extensive web of corrupt practices, as recently unearthed, employed by the GGMC in collusion with the affluent. Therefore, in accordance with basic notions of fairness and the re-creation of a metaphorically ‘levelled playing field’, I call upon the newly appointed commissioner to look into this matter.
Owen Caesar

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GGMC is in corrupt collusion with the rich and powerful

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