The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, with support from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) is moving to establish deployable shelter camps to address safety for mining officers based in the far-flung locations across the country, said a press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA).
According to the release, the Ministry has established a camp at Olive Creek, Maza-runi, Region Seven, with Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud and GGMC’s Com-missioner (ag), GGMC, Rickford Vieira conducting an inspection of the shelter yesterday.
“It is part of our renewed drive to service the mining community; we decided to move into this sort of high tech and very convenient type of camping facility. We want our staff to work, but we want them to work under very humane and safe conditions and that is why this year we are putting a lot of investment in this area,” Persaud said.
The release noted that each of the camps costs US$8000 or $1.6M and the intent is to build eight of these stations across the country in a move to have more officers placed in these locations to ensure stricter adherence to the mining laws and regulations.
“We have about 90 staff out. We intend to have about another 50 or 60 out by the end of the year servicing the different mining districts… We need to be out there to work with the miners so that we have the best practices and to provide support for them and also to ensure that we have compliance and enforcement consistent with our laws and regulations,” he said
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GINA said the Minister explained that this focus of more monitoring and enforcement has been transferred to the Commission as its focus for the year. He said that both the Guyana Gold Board and the commission have been giving due attention to the areas.
Meanwhile, he explained that the ministry continues to work with its partners, inclusive of the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners’ Association (GGMA,) the small miners, and Amerindian communities in this regard, in ensuring safe mining in keeping with the mining regulations.
“We want to have that kind of collaboration and involvement of the stakeholders and having these types of facilities makes it more convenient and conducive for better work on the ground, and at the end of the day for us to manage the mining sector in a manner that fulfils our legal obligations,” he said.
According to Vieira, the commission has already moved towards setting up a portable station in North-West, Region One and in the Cuyuni, Region Seven among other areas. The camps can hold about 15 persons.
“We want to increase our capacity to monitor these areas and we need accommodation. If you look at the current accommodation, that is not adequate enough, it is not convenient enough for the officers to work hard whole day and come in a situation like that where they are exposed to that malaria and other forms of vector diseases that are common in these mining areas,” said Vieira.
According to Commissioner, about 5 to 10 of GGMC’s officers come down with malaria every month. The shelter system can easily be dismantled and redeployed. It has an expandable ISO container that is also outfitted with mesh. The camps are elevated off the ground.
Later, Minister Persaud and team visited and inspected the Correia Mining operations nearby and had a first-hand view of the camp’s mining operations, GINA said.
