(De Ware Tijd) PARAMARIBO – In about two weeks’ time, construction will start of the facilities for the first School of Mining at Snesi Kondre. If it were up to Gerold Dompig, chairman of the Management Team to Bring Order to the Gold Sector, the school will open in January. The money for the building and the equipment that will be used to teach small-scale gold miners to work mercury-free will come out of the revenues of gold multinational Iamgold. Last Friday, an agreement was signed between the foundation Suriname Environmental and Mining Foundation (SEMIF) and the School of Mining and Mineral Processing (SMMP). SEMIF is a foundation that manages a fund that Iamgold is obliged to keep in gold with the Royal Canadian Mint in Canada. This fund is intended for the development of the gold sector in Suriname and now has a value of over US$ 12 million. Dompig points out that the project, which costs US$ 244,440, has been submitted and approved. He is pleased that this is done at Snesi Kondre, as this is the area in which the bringing of order was started and the recent big gold conference was held. Immediately after this project, proposals for similar schools at four other locations will be submitted. “We will bombard SEMIF with projects”, says Dompig, who is pleased to have found a source of financing.
