Small miners complain about Ministers Trotman and Broomes

Aug 05, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am one of a few small miners who work for several years on land that was a government reserve until a few months ago. We have been informed that this land now belongs to a large-scale miner and we are being told to cease working immediately and to pack up and leave this land. Sir, we have tried unsuccessfully to get mining permission for this land, now we are left wondering how this large-scale miner got documents to this piece of land, which we, the miners who are actually working the land could not receive.
We have sought an audience with the Natural Resources Minister, Mr. Raphael Trotman without any success. We tried calling his office many times and on every occasion we were told he is unavailable. We also wrote to him but we are yet to receive a response. We journeyed to GGMC to meet with Minister Broomes on her “Open Day”, however we were told that the “Open Day” has been discontinued, and when we asked where is Minister Broomes’ office so we could go there to complain to her, we were told she does not have an office.
Sir, it is as if this government does not want to hear the complaints of small miners. They are pretending that all is well in the gold mining industry. Oil is the only thing we hear Minister Trotman and this government speak about, yet oil production is ten years away. What about gold and the small gold miners? We are Guyanese who have been here all our lives and we are trying to work today. We need land to work today to support our families today, not ten years from now.
There is no policy or forum to address the concerns of small miners; no provisions have been made for us to receive any of the land that was recently allotted and distributed to miners. Sir, the recent distribution of land, which was promised by Minister Trotman to small miners to remedy the historic wrong, which resulted in small miners not having any lands to work, came and went. Yet, most small miners have not received any land, neither do we know what process if any exists for us to get a piece of this land. The recent land distribution is like a national secret, nobody knows anything about it.
The rampant corruption continues at GGMC. Large and connected miners can receive mining licenses to land anywhere in this country at a moment’s notice, while we, small miners who are working a piece of land cannot get lawful permission to work. And now they have closed the only avenue we had for lodging complaints against the GGMC and to receive justice in land disputes and other issues.
The President told us that Minister Broomes was transferred to the Natural Resources Ministry because of her vast experience in the mining industry. So why is Minister Broomes not dealing with mining issues? Why has she stopped conducting the ‘Open Day’ and why is she no longer meeting with small miners? Where and to whom are small miners supposed to bring our complaints now?
We were happy when the President transferred Broomes to Natural Resources and we gratefully brought our complaints to her on Wednesdays at the GGMC, when she convened an “Open Day” to meet with the public. We know her and we know that she knows what happens in the gold bush. Many small miners went to her and have had their problems resolved. Why has this successful initiative been abruptly scrapped? Sir, we voted for a change, and we are yet to see that change at the GGMC or in the gold mining sector. Now no one, no one is looking out for the small miners, no one wants to hear our troubles, no one wants to address our complaints, and nobody cares.
Small Miner

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Small miners complain about Ministers Trotman and Broomes

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