Minister of Transport and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn says he is “surprised” at statements by Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) head, William Woolford about there being no evidence of widespread corruption in the field and called for “an urgent review” of the agency’s leadership.
Benn – a former GGMC commissioner, however, did not say that there was widespread corruption and only said that there are “continuing issues”. President Bharrat Jagdeo, addressing the annual officers’ conference of the Guyana Defence Force on Tuesday, told the officers that there is need for some of them in the state agencies and he singled out the GGMC. “I need some soldiers in there. The corruption in the field is unbelievable, particularly with the price of gold where it is and I need to clean up some of this situation there too”, Jagdeo had said.
“Unfortunately we don’t have the evidence of that at the moment and we’re prepared to act on any of the evidence presented”, Woolford had told Stabroek News in an interview where several of the agency’s department heads were also present. He had said that any concern of that nature by the head of state is definitely of concern to the GGMC. But, he had noted, while allegations are made, most of those making the allegations do not provide written statements so that due process could be followed and this ties the agency’s hands. He had stressed that there is zero-tolerance for corrupt activities of staff and pointed to several initiatives to combat this.
“It appears as though the leaders in the GGMC are in a different world which has no basis or no relationship with the realities on the ground in the fields. We have to deal on a weekly basis with issues arising out of the mining sector which have to be advised and referred to the GGMC and or to the Prime Minister”, Benn said in a statement last evening.
“There are frequent issues which miners come to my Ministry as former Commissioner too, to deal with and to advise on and one would have hoped that the Commissioner would focus more on the issue of doing an urgent review of the complaints, not only from persons who may not want to give a statement given the issues of victimization, perceived or otherwise, but particularly too because the President himself spoke on this issue publicly”, he said.
Saying that he thought that it is a “most unfortunate occurrence”, Benn said that as a former Commissioner, he was disappointed with “the lack of sustainability of certain initiatives that we undertook to improve and to work with these situations”. According to him, “there are continuing issues in respect of verification of claims, of claim jumping, of reports of or cease work orders being issued and not being readily dealt with, of favours being granted, or requested or demanded with respect to acting in one way or the other and the enormous delay in dealing with certain simple issues”.
He said that he thought the headline in yesterday’s Stabroek News was “most unfortunate” and “I hope that the honourable Prime Minister would look to a rectification of this type of statement and the GGMC sets about doing an urgent review of its leadership and particularly the problems in the field and the effectiveness on the ground”.
