Dear Editor,
I pen this letter with great concern as the President of the Karrau Mining Syndicate.
In May 2016 we made an application for some lands in Kuribrong, and after a long pushing around and many phone calls to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Permanent Secretary, the Closed Area Committee eventually called us to a meeting in November 2016.
The Karrau Syndicate incurred expenses of over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to attend this meeting, which we were led to believe would resolve the issues concerning our land application. Instead we were asked a set of irrelevant questions, ie what we want the lands for, and what mining equipment did we have, etc?
We were then told that we were the wrong “set of people” which they had called to the meeting, but we would still hear from them. This meeting was an absolute waste of time. In March 2017, we attended a meeting with Minister Trotman, Minister Broomes, several GGMC officials and the executives of all the mining syndicates. During this meeting we were informed that our land had been approved for prospecting and published in the Gazette dated March 16, 2017 on a special order from the Minister. However to date we have not received any formal documentation which would permit mining, and which is required by law before we can start working.
I assure you that all syndicates are prepared to be compliant, but corruption continues to be the order of the day because of bureaucracy.
Editor, the matter is urgent because while syndicates are waiting on GGMC to process our land applications, the said lands are being raided. If this is not resolved quickly the lands will be worthless by the time they are licensed to the syndicates.
Yours faithfully,
Judith Blair
President
Karrau Mining Syndicate
