Dear Editor,
I would like to correct a serious mistake made by your reporter in an article in SN of your Sunday, August 2, edition, under the heading ‘Mercury in mining will have to go – Jagdeo.’
In no part of my speech or in a presentation document did I say that the President’s LCDS would have disastrous effects on the financial and social aspects of the small and medium-scale mining industry, as reported in the second paragraph of your article.
In my speech and the document I read on July 29, I stated that 90% of miners will go out of mining, should the GGMC (which entity had nothing to do with the President’s LCDS) implement a condition in a mining regulation, which was told to me and being told to miners by the Commissioner, and which states that miners would eventually have to stop mining, carry out an exploration programme, and get economic assay results, before they would be allowed to continue to mine and cut down any trees.
90% of the 260,000 ounces of gold sold to the Guyana Gold Board and valued at over US$215M in 2008 was produced on medium scale permit areas, which operations will be affected if the impending new proposed condition for mining, is made law. This would mean that only 10% of miners would eventually continue to survive in mining, and they would have the financial capability of performing this difficult, costly and time-consuming operation. The majority of miners will find it difficult and probably not feasible, to purchase the special drill, finance the exploration cost, pay their instalments to banks and machinery financing firms like Macorp and General Equipment Ltd, take care of their families during this shut-down period, when no money is coming to them, from gold production and sales.
All miners who wish to remain in mining would have to import/purchase a special costly Saprolite Recovery Drill, and drill in difficult alluvial conditions, where the drill will encounter in these old alluvial river beds, all sizes of floating granite boulders, and hundreds of pieces of wood from dead trees. These drilling conditions would be a nightmare, and it would be almost impossible to recover a proper gold sample which would qualify them to be given permission to mine.
I said with 90% of miners going out of mining, this would have disastrous effects on the financial and social aspects of the small and medium-scale mining industry and beyond. There are many reasons, the most important ones are shown below:
a) Miners are already in debt, having purchased costly mining equipment, including hydraulic excavators which cost as much as $40M, some miners having mortgaged their properties/houses to get the financing.
b) In 2008 the miners’ workers, which number in the thousands from all over the towns and villages, the majority being Amerindians, were paid by miners over $10B, based on 20% earnings in legally recorded gold sales of $50B; they sent home this money to their wives, sisters, mothers and fathers.
With the shut-down of 90 % of mining operations, this money would no longer be available to the workers and their families, so you could imagine what would happen. With this massive increase in unemployment, there will be a great increase in poverty, crime and social degradation.
WWW-Guyanas project FG-64 Suriname: “Most people found closing the Gold Mines not an option. They predicted an increase in Poverty, Crime, and Social Problems.”
There will not only be a tremendous financial loss to miners and their workers, but also a loss to other organizations, some of which are: the GGMC, which took in from miners $3B in 2008;
GGB, which made a profit of $245M in 2008; foreign exchange earnings which saw nearly $250M from gold and diamonds in 2008; IRD, which collected $1B from the miners in 2008;
service organizations like Interior Aircraft Services, which will suffer a tremendous drop in revenue and could in some cases go bankrupt, especially those which had just purchased additional aircraft.
At that meeting with the President at Hotel Tower, on July 29, I took the opportunity to appeal to him on behalf of the small and medium-scale miners, for the following three conditions:
Firstly, to stop the GGMC from implementing the condition that will stop all miners from mining until they did exploration, and proved economic assay results;
Secondly to allow the continued use of mercury, until such time that an economic alternative gold recovery system is found, because gold miners are using retorts when burning gold amalgam in the gold separation process, as retorts save the fumes from being inhaled by them, and the mercury is recovered and reused again, saving a lot of money in the process. Mercury is still the safest and most efficient amalgam gold recovery process to use. For educational and safety purposes, I will try to have an article published on the source and uses of mercury. You will be shocked at where mercury is found.
Thirdly, I also asked President Jagdeo to exempt, not a specific area, but a total acreage of between 5% and 7% of the forested area, from his area in his LCDS, for miners to continue to mine under the existing conditions. It is interesting to note that since alluvial mining commenced many years ago, only an area of a little over 1% of the forested area has so far been mined, while 50% of that 1 % has seen complete forest regeneration, which shows the slow pace at which miners are mining.
Over US$1B in gold and diamonds have been produced by the small and medium-scale miners over the last couple of years, and more importantly, this was done over a small area. A fantastic performance by them.
The purpose of the said meeting on July 29 was advertised by the GGDMA, as
i) for the President to explain the low Carbon Development Strategy, and listen to the concerns of all stakeholders in the industry;
ii) to discuss the way forward for mining in Guyana, and listen to the miners on matters that affect the growth of the mining industry, as well as recommendations that will ensure its continued growth, and maintain its position as a major contributor to Guyana’s economy.
Although President Jagdeo embarrassed me, and I felt very hurt, by stopping me from speaking, I was touched a second before that happened, when the entire mining audience loudly applauded what I had said, and unfortunately for me that applause helped to contribute to my having to be stopped from speaking, as I realized that the President did not want any serious mining negatives at that meeting, which could appear to reflect negatively on his LCDS programme, although what I said had absolutely nothing to do with the LCDS, a programme which I am backing 100 per cent.
We appeal to President Jagdeo to get the GGMC to delay any condition that would make it financially impossible for the majority of our small and medium-scale miners to survive.
Yours faithfully,
Patrick Pereira
Editor’s note
We agree that Mr Pereira did not say that the LCDS of itself would have disastrous effects on mining and apologise to him for any inconvenience caused. However his input was made in the context of the LCDS.
At the meeting Mr Pereira said that miners had a “fear” and questioned whether it was a “co-incidence” that the GGMC was enforcing the regulation that would put 90% of miners out of business at the same time as the LCDS was being promoted. He went on to say that should the government and the GGMC proceed with enforcing the regulation, there would be “disastrous” effects on the financial and social aspect of the small and medium-scale mining industry, and beyond.
