The Government of Guyana will not condone the flouting of the requirements of the Kimberley Process (KP) and aims to implement additional measures and regulations to ensure Guyana’s diamonds for export are legitimate, conflict free and not contaminated.
This is according to a statement from Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud, following the seeming loss of credibility of the Kimberley Process (KP) with the exit of a major NGO.
Persaud was contacted by this newspaper for an update on what his Ministry was doing in response to concerns raised over Guyana’s diamonds. He noted that in 2004 diamond “declaration” was unprecedented and this was a year after the KP was launched.
“There currently seems to be little evidence of smuggled diamonds entering the Guyanese market since the production in both 2010 and 2011 hovered around only 50,000 carats,” the Minister said.
He added that around 2004, Guyana’s diamond-producing neighbours had problems. “Brazil had a somewhat tortuous process and Venezuela had difficulties with the KP organization; in fact, Venezuela is now de-certified,” he noted.
“It must be noted that that the alluvial diamonds from Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil are virtually indistinguishable even to experts,” the Minister said. “This has resulted in the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission implementing some very exacting checks and documentation to ensure a trace back mechanism is in place for the diamonds presented for export,” he said, adding that this caters for legitimacy of the mining area to the sale of the product.
Additionally, he said Guyana’s tracking system was recognized by the NGO Part-nership Africa-Canada (PAC) as one of the best during a meeting of Alluvial Diamond Min-ing countries in Johannesburg.
“The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment will endeavour to work closely with the regulatory body-Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and all stakeholders to maintain the legitimacy of diamond mining by complying with international standards to export diamonds free of conflicts,” the Minister said.
He said too that additional efforts in conjunction with Guyana’s security forces will be made to buttress security patrols along the borders “to minimize any smuggling of dirty diamonds.”
The PAC in 2007 had estimated the volume of Venezuelan diamonds entering Guyana on a yearly basis to be somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 carats out of total production figure upward of 400,000 carats. Diamond production reached an all-time high of 425,000 carats in 2004, while diamond declaration in 2002 and the years before was at least 50% less.
In a press release in December 2011, Charmian Gooch, a Founding Director of Global Witness, stated that nearly nine years after the launch of the Kimberley Process, most consumers still could not be sure where their diamonds come from or whether they were financing armed violence or abusive regimes. In that press release, Global Witness said it was leaving the Kimberley Process as an observer and called for the diamond industry to be accountable.
Former head of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission William Woolford subsequently told this newspaper that Guyana still has strong mechanisms for trading in the gem.
