GGMC working to build capacity in petroleum, but not at expense of mining sector - Dennison

GGMC working to build capacity in petroleum, but not at expense of mining sector – Dennison

Oct 12, 2018 News

The Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) sees the need to build capacity in the nascent oil and gas sector. However, Commissioner Newell Dennison said that he is not willing to go down the road of starving one sector for another.
He said that the GGMC is still cognizant of its responsibility to other sectors like bauxite, gold and diamond. Dennison said this during an interview with Kaieteur News.
He said that the Commission continues to receive payments from oil companies for the purpose of capacity building.

Commissioner of GGMC, Newell Dennison

Dennison said, “The companies continue to make their obligatory payments for capacity building, rentals and otherwise.”
However, even though the money is being collected from oil companies, Dennison said that all is not going towards building the oil sector. Dennison told Kaieteur News, “I continue to say that we are not going to discriminate and say that this specifically will be for oil or for whatever else.”
“As is said before, if we are training geologists, we are training geologists and they will be available to serve the country, every sector, whether it is oil or mining.
Dennison said that there are currently a number of citizens studying at the University of Guyana (UG). He said that there are also persons studying mining engineering.
The Commissioner said that the GGMC is currently in budget mode and is busy trying to figure how to treat with all of those issues going forward.
“We cannot put our entire budget to petroleum when we still have a paucity of resources (human and otherwise) needed for other sectors, it has to be balanced.”
Dennison said that this is especially important since new and bigger things are already going on in other sectors. For instance, Dennison pointed out that underground gold and diamond mining is set to begin next year. He noted that trained personnel will be needed to man this venture in the various regulatory areas.
Dennison said that a lot of training is going on “but what I am trying to avoid is that we kill one sector for another.” Many international experts have been warning Guyana against focusing too much on the oil sector at the expense of the traditional sectors.”
Further, Dennison said that currently, the GGMC has enough money to offset expenses for capacity building internally.
However, the Commissioner said that now is not the time to continue looking only at internal capacity building.
He said, “We cannot continue looking only at GGMC workers.” Dennison said that various government agencies are already networking in this regard.”

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