While the Government of Guyana is optimistic that gold production for this year could reach 600,000 ounces, there is every likelihood that gold smuggling persists despite official efforts to curb the practice, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman has told Stabroek Business.
“I have no doubt that gold smuggling is continuing,” Trotman declared in a recent interview, even as he pointed to the fact that smuggling notwithstanding, the industry continues to yield a steady increase in annual production.
“The figures that we have show, as you would see, an almost 90% increase in declarations,” Trotman declared, adding that he continued to give credit to all the miners.
At a media briefing in January this year Trotman had dropped a proverbial bombshell, declaring that around 15,000 ounces of gold were being smuggled out of Guyana each week and that the country was losing as much as 60% of its gold production to smuggling.
Trotman had said that the smuggled gold was being sent to Brazil, Suriname, and was being landed at the Miami International Airport and JFK Airport in the US and sent further afield, even as far as Europe and the Middle East.
While this newspaper is not aware that the claim regarding the amount of gold being smuggled was ever conclusively proven, the authorities here had entertained a team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security in 2015. The team had met Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan and representatives of other security-related agencies including the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU). Questions have been raised as to whether the authorities here have the capacity to effectively plug the loopholes that facilitate the smuggling of gold or even to significantly slow down the process.
Trotman had said earlier this year that information regarding the points of exit for the smuggled gold had been garnered from the briefing that local officials had received from the US team. Last week, he told Stabroek Business that matters pertaining to the smuggling of gold had been handed over to the Minister of Public Security. “They are working very closely with foreign counterparts,” Trotman declared.
Stressing that there was a clear division of official responsibility in matters relating to managing the country’s gold industry, Trotman said that while the job of his ministry had to do with getting the gold out of the ground, the job of law-enforcement is to ensure it is channelled in the right and proper ways.
“Smuggling has been part of life from time immemorial and whenever there are restrictions on an item or commodity, people smuggle it. Because gold has value people use it for financial transactions outside of the normal financial architecture, as a means of laundering, as a means of hiding income, as a means of financing illegal or illicit activities. That is not something that is unique to Guyana, but we believe that we have put a dent in it,” Trotman declared.
