Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
Foreign companies ‘raping’ Guyana’s gold and forestry sectors
– While citizens left to eke living with ‘starvation wages’ – KN Publisher, Glenn Lall
Kaieteur News – Kaieteur News Publisher, Glenn Lall has vehemently lamented the deplorable state of affairs in Guyana, where foreign corporations are granted government’s approval to exploit the nation’s abundant resources, while the majority of its citizenry is left to eke out a living on “dog food salaries.”
Kaieteur News Publisher, Dr. Glenn Lall
In his latest commentaries, Lall articulated the distressing reality that each passing day sees Guyanese being “raped and robbed” of their natural treasures. Reflecting on the events that transpired in Guyana’s gold sector during the Forbes Burnham era, Lall vividly recalled a particular incident involving British Consolidated, a company that operated in the gold-rich Eagle Mountain. Lall said Burnham, who had perused The Graphic Newspaper, caught sight of an engineer emerging from a gold mine, clutching a massive chunk of gold, and giving a sardonic grin for the camera. Lall said Burnham promptly ordered the company to depart within two weeks. His decision stemmed from the sharp contrast between the company’s paltry declarations to the gold board and the true magnitude of their rapacious actions upon the country.
Lall then draw attention to the fact that worse is being allowed to occur under new leadership. The businessman was keen to highlight the disparity in production between small and medium scale miners and their foreign counterparts. The former he said toil with 4-inch and, if they can afford it, 6-inch dredges, yielding modest daily outputs of gold ranging from two to five ounces. In contrast, foreign entities resort to the use of dynamite, explosively rupturing the mining fields, followed by mechanized processes utilizing front-end loaders and trucks to transport vast amounts of earth to state-of-the-art processing plants. These foreign entities he said amass no less than 1 ton of gold daily, equivalent to a staggering 32,150 ounces.
For the KN Publisher, the extent of this plundering is an abhorrent disgrace, particularly when juxtaposed with the impoverished state of many locals who are reduced to living like scavengers, barely scraping together sustenance each day. Lall also shed light on the alarming parallels in Guyana’s forestry sector. He decried the abhorrent situation where thousands of foreigners are allowed to construct roads and bridges in the interior, all the while exploiting and pilfering the nation’s invaluable resources, with the added indignity of barring locals from even setting foot on some of these bridges and roads.
He said too that the concessions granted to foreign companies in the forestry sector, allowing them to conduct large-scale operations with duty-free privileges for excavators, logging loaders, bulldozers, chainsaws, and tractors, further exacerbate the plight of the nation. Lall openly questions whether this flagrant disregard for the welfare of the Guyanese people amounts to nothing short of treason. The thought of witnessing hundreds of Chinese individuals shipping out pontoons, laden with resources, while the nation’s citizens struggle to secure a proper meal, stirs a righteous indignation in Lall’s soul. He recognises that the nation’s leaders seem unperturbed by this egregious imbalance, where the interests of the people are brazenly compromised for the gains of foreign corporations.
In a defiant act of civil disobedience, Lall, along with his of the Kaieteur News and Kaieteur Radio plans to make a powerful statement by staying home on July 31, 2023. This united front aims to send a strong message that they stand against the wholesale banditry perpetrated by foreign entities in collusion with the country’s leaders, preying on Guyana’s cherished resources. He passionately calls upon other citizens to join in this act of protest and take a bold stance against this systemic exploitation and violation of their nation’s precious heritage.
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