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Govt. probing mining sector to identify, address leakages – Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – This was disclosed by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo at his weekly press conference on Thursday. He said that the government is currently doing investigations since people can “dupe” the system. The VP was asked by this publication if “Guyana has any systems currently in place to monitor its gold, diamond and other areas in the mining sector or how soon this can be implemented since the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) now requires countries to verify production data from all mining companies.
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
In response Jagdeo said: “we have had a positive report…our system is much more transparent than the other countries’ systems that are part of EITI. We have had a fairly decent tracking system for the gold, because we have licensed a few dealers. Do we have leakages? There is a current investigation ongoing as to whether we have leakages because people can dupe even the system.”
Jagdeo noted that he would not “say anything adverse about the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, (since) after the issues of not having the report done on time, there have been a lot of improvement with the working relationship between the government and EITI “and I am looking forward to strengthening the systems all the time.” It is important to note that the country’s mining sector is one that comes under constant scrutiny especially in the area of gold.
Back in July this newspaper reported that an investigation into the steep decline in gold declarations made to the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) over the past six years was underway, as authorities here believe the resources are being smuggled into neighbouring Brazil.
Jagdeo back then had told reporters that the noticeable decline in gold declarations, as first reported by Kaieteur News, could be as a result of the country’s resources being smuggled into Brazil. He explained, “I see a big thing about gold smuggling now too and its absolutely right…Kaieteur News has (reported) a drop in declarations of gold from 2017…it’s absolutely true that we have noticed, especially the last couple of years a significant deviation and the story coming out from Brazil now we realize it may be diverting (there).”
The former Head of State noted that the government was formerly of the view that gold from Venezuela was coming into Guyana to bypass the sanctions, then head North through a legal route. However, it has now realised that it is Guyana’s gold that is being smuggled into Brazil. “When we saw an article recently in Brazil, we had not been officially notified before that all of this gold was going into Brazil. In fact, we found it strange that our gold would go there; we were thinking that Venezuelan gold was coming in but it doesn’t seem so,” Jagdeo noted.
It was reported that the Brazilian Federal Police in Boa Vista, Roraima are investigating a Guyanese businessman, for allegedly laundering some US$16.5M in smuggled gold, through shell companies in Brazil. According to the Brazilian Federal Police (Policia Federal), the investigation was launched on July 7, 2023.
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