Amid the slump in gold declarations and complaints about mined-out lands, prospectors yesterday began snapping up 1,000 medium scale parcels up for auction and in some cases bids reached as high as $1.2M after starting out at $60,000.
Auctioning under the auspices of the Guyana Geology and Mines Com-mission (GGMC) is set to continue today and is one of a raft of measures the government is taking to reverse the slump in gold declarations.
More than a 100 gold miners turned out for the first auction in five years yesterday. The lengthy process to allocate medium scale properties saw intense bidding at the auction, which was held at the Girl Guides pavilion at Brickdam.
The lots were from the six mining districts across Guyana: Berbice (#1), Potaro (#2), Mazaruni (#3), Cuyuni (#4), North West District (#5) and Rupununi (#6). The successful bid merely gives the bidder the right to apply for the mining permit.
Each lot was a maximum of 1,200 acres, for which the bidder would be required to pay an additional 25 cents per acre to acquire the mining rights to the land.
The properties placed for auction were once occupied, according to GGMC Land Administra-tion Manager Donald Singh, who said the permits were cancelled because previous owners had stopped paying rent for varying reasons, including abandonment.
He said that persons in possession of the previous claims were notified in advance of the proceedings, giving them a chance to update their payments and continue exploiting the lands.
Failure to make payments or unwillingness to do so because of poor prospecting results or an inability to mine the lands resulted in the cancellations of the licences for the properties placed on auction yesterday.
The auction was conducted by broadcaster Ron Robinson, who served as the auctioneer, while seven GGMC administrative staff recorded the bids and bidders.
After each district was exhausted, bidders would come forward to collect receipts to pay for their prospective properties to ease the build up at the end of the day. They would be required to make payments at a future date.
Starting August 18th, 1,000 more lots will be awarded via a lottery to be hosted in each of the mining districts in an effort to increase transparency of land distribution. Persons are required to file an application with the GGMC and pay the requisite $5,000 fee prior to August 14th if they wish to qualify for the auction.
A statement from the Ministry of Natural Re-sources yesterday said the auction was made possible following discussions with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association and the GGMC.
The release said that Natural Resources Minis-ter Robert Persaud had mandated the Closed Area Committee to identify mining properties for lottery/auction thereby making more mining properties available to miners and new entrants to the sector. The release said that the committee is broad based and its work is guided by statutes. It added that the transparency and openness of the award of blocks for the auction was witnessed by various stakeholders.
The statement said that the GGMC anticipates that there will be a full allocation of the blocks listed for auction.
In his mid-year review of the economy on Saturday, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh reported that gold declarations for the first half of this year have dropped by 17.2% with export earnings from the precious mineral sliding by 25% and the decline is likely to continue for the remainder of the year,
