80% of small miners may have to go to jail

Sep 14, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I read your article of September 13, 2020 ‘Miner fined $12M for damaging Cuyuni River; another gets jail time for breaches’ and wish to deliberate on this renewed strategic vision for the mining sector. The honourable minister seems to not be aware of the current modus operandi of the mining industry, where 80% of small miners are forced to work without the requisite permission to operate from GGMC making them illegal miners, because the landlords of the industry do not want small miners to legally work on their mining permits and claims. This situation exists because the landlords utilize the small miner to do exploration for them and if the small miner finds any gold they come with their private security and put them off the land, since the small miner has no documents to prove that the landlord sent him there in the first place. This harsh approach by the GGMC and the Government will see 80% of small miners, numbering in the thousands facing the prospect of jail time just for trying to earn a living.
I am aware of the incident where the miner in NWD was jailed for a mining offence, and wish to state that the miner chose to defend himself because no one had ever gone to jail for a mining offence and he thought that he would only have to pay a fine. So I want to put small miners on notice that when the mines officer comes to your operation and he issues you with an order to remove and you fail to do so, prepare to find a good lawyer or go to jail or pay a hefty out of court settlement.
What the honourable minister should be doing instead of trying to jail small miners is to ensure that the landlords of the industry facilitate the legal workings of the small miner or find proper land for the small miners to work, and not lottery blocks just for publicity that have no mineral on them.
In the meantime, if the GGDMA cannot represent small miners, we should form a new small miners’ association to represent our cause.

Concerned Small Miner

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