The frequency of mining accidents that often result in loss of life in the gold mining sector is an extension of a “long-standing pattern of lawlessness and indifference to the value of human life” that obtains in the gold-mining industry, a source close the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) has told Stabroek Business.
“The bottom line is that where the priority concern is with gold-recovery… the safety of lives and about doing things properly often get pushed down the scale…,” the source said.
In the wake of a May 2015 accident at Potaro in which a mining pit caved in burying ten miners the Government of Guyana named former Head of the GGMC Dr Grantley Walrond as Chairman of a Mining Accidents Review Committee set up to enquire into “the collapse of mining pits and any other features which could result in injury or loss of life.”
Part of the mandate of the Committee is to conduct investigations of allegations (if any) against the various departments of the [Guyana Geology and Mines] Commission and any other named individual” in relation to mining accidents.
The source told Stabroek Business that he believed this particular clause was intended to draw attention to “likely internal irregularities” at the GGMC, the entity responsible for making and enforcing the rules.
“At the end of the day we can only hope that the enquiry is open and transparent and that it deals frankly with the problems,” the GGMC source told Stabroek Business.
While the source told this newspaper that he had no reason to question the integrity of the enquiry team he was aware that those miners who had lost their lives in site accidents we “working men” and that while “a loss is a loss” there were those in the mining sector who subscribed to a “deh dun dead and gone” attitude.
Asked whether he was implying that the inquiry might fail to put its fingers on the right issues the source said that while that was not his particular concern he was skeptical about whether “any practical findings” would be implemented.
One of the responsibilities of the Review Committee is to identify “instances of mining pit collapse within the last twelve months” though the source told Stabroek Business that what is more important is whether once culpability in mining pit collapses is identified penalties will accrue to the guilty parties.
And according to the source a key responsibility of the Review Committee is the “review of recent complaints, the flow of decision-making to investigate complaints, the issuing and enforcement of orders, fines and penalties as provided by the Mining Act and Regulations.”
In the matter of the Committee’s responsibility to review permits and licenses “with a view to determining compliance of all parties” the source said that there were known cases of a lack of compliance by persons in the mining sector which the Committee ought to probe “closely.”
“The fact of the matter is that over a long period of time there have been widely known instances of irregularity in various areas of the sector and some of these have had to do with the safety of miners. It is an inherited problem but the present government has a responsibility to take it in hand. More than that the Committee needs to be reminded that it does not have a lifetime to do its work,” the source said.
