More than five years after the Chinese investor Bosai assumed control of seventy per cent of the bauxite mining operations at Linden, the community continues to endure numerous broken promises from the company regarding the installation of an extractor system to significantly reduce the volume of dust that rains down from the kilns. If Bosai has, from time to time, sought to give the impression that relieving Linden of the dust problem is on its front burner, that impression has been nullified by what, on the whole, appears to be a preparedness to simply set deadlines, break them then set new ones again. On the whole its posture has been unacceptable.
The first issue that comes to mind, of course, is whether the installation of the dust extractor system could not have been linked to the original investment agreement so that even if, for the sake of argument, the system could not have been installed prior to the startup of the company’s operations at Linden, any reasonable deadline set in 2006 would surely have expired by now.
Here, the question arises as to whether the Government of Guyana, as a thirty per cent shareholder in the company and, perhaps more importantly, in its capacity as the custodian of the state, ought not to have been far more forceful in insisting that Bosai honour its commitment to deal with the dust problem.
The truth of the matter is that there is no serious evidence that the Government of Guyana has been persistently pressing Bosai on the matter of the dust extractor. Here, one is tempted to draw attention to what appears to have been a similar posture of protracted indifference to the widely reported indiscretions of the Russian majority-owned bauxite company, Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) and, up until recently, the leaden-footedness of the government in response to complaints of health and safety transgressions and disregard for the country’s labour laws by Rusal.
One wonders whether Bosai’s failure, up until now, to install the dust extractor system may not have been influenced to a lesser or greater extent by what it has perceived to be a lack of urgency on the part of the government in the matter of having the dust extractor up and running.
Both Bosai and Rusal have made significant investments in Guyana though one would hate to think that the sizes of these investments entitle them to exemptions from compliance with operating and health and safety standards. More than that, given what we are told are the anticipated major and imminent investments in the gold mining sector, it is surely not in the government’s or the country’s interest to be seen to be assuming a posture that fosters the belief among investors that they can get away with poor operating standards, particularly in cases which have implications for the well-being of communities.
After years of enduring both the dust pollution problem and its attendant health and nuisance implications it appears that the Linden community and its local authority officials have decided that in the seeming absence of a sense of urgency on the parts of both Bosai and the government, they will step up their agitation. Interestingly, neither the company’s recent announcement of a new US$100m investment in the industry, just over half of which is reportedly earmarked for the dust extractor project nor the announcement by the company that the project is 90 per cent complete appears to have impressed Lindeners. In fact, at last week’s media briefing Linden NDC officials went as far as accusing the company of deceiving the community in the matter of dust emission from Kiln 10 and questioning whether, even when completed, the proposed dust extractor will bring a satisfactory measure of relief from the problem.
If the situation is to be summed up bluntly what is required is that it is no longer to be left entirely to Bosai to set and break deadlines then set new ones all over again. It is the government, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that must assert itself in this matter in a manner that sends a clear and unmistakable signal to both Bosai and other investors and would-be investors that multi-million dollar investments in the Guyana economy will not be treated as a tradeoff for transgressions that compromise the welfare and well-being of people and communities.
