Curbing what Prime Minister Samuel Hinds once described as “the wild west situation” that obtained in the approach to prospecting in the country’s gold-bearing regions is one of the “critical aims” of the training curriculum being delivered by the Guyana Mining School, according to a senior official of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC).
Stabroek Business has learnt that training courses being offered by the School include an introductory level programme for prospectors.
“What that course seeks to do is to try to change the mindset of some prospectors who have not always behaved responsibly. Some miners take unacceptable risks. They adopt a sort of hit or miss approach to mining. There are cases in which a miner might invest several millions of dollars, to acquire a dredge then proceed to an area because he might hear that the area is making gold. He goes on it and starts to work hoping that he gets gold. We believe that this is a bad mindset.”
The Mining School Administrator, John Applewhite-Hercules told Stabroek Business that the course for prospectors seeks to demonstrate the significant difference in costs “if you follow a prospecting programme as against if you follow a mining programme.
In the case of the prospecting programme you take your dredge into the bush and you hope to get lucky. The mining programme allows you access to research that allows you to tap into data that is available at the GGMC. There are literally millions of dollars in data that tells you about gold locations and what the gold values are as well as the values of 48 other elements in Guyana.”
Applewhite-Hercules told Stabroek Business that the GGMC has been collecting data through the Geological Service Division on various parts of Guyana. “Many miners never knew that such information exists.” He said that the information is being summarized on maps. “If we can teach miners how to read those maps and interpret the information regarding where there may be significant mineralization in terms of gold and diamonds,” that would help, the mining official said.
