-given agency’s lack of credible response to gold scandals
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) says the startling allegations about gold smuggling from this country and the inaction by the mines commission on these matters can only be addressed by an external investigation.
In a release yesterday, the GHRA referred to a Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) release in the aftermath of the US Treasury’s sanctioning of the third largest gold company in Guyana over accusations of large-scale gold smuggling, which made allegations of the existence of a virtual parallel illegal gold industry in Guyana. The GHRA noted that less dramatic but similar allegations about irregularity and illegality in the gold sector have been steadfastly ignored by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) for years, and both the Commission and government had failed to offer any credible public response. “… neither the GGMC, nor the government have responded publicly to any of the actions by the US or the allegations by the GGDMA. Over the past decade the US and other international agencies have on numerous occasions sought government action to address criminality in the gold sector, but without success.”
According to the release, these warnings have been well-publicized in the press particularly the Stabroek News and it highlighted the following references. In 2022 the local Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism National Coordination Committee (NRA) issued a Risk Assessment Report that identified and summarized for the period 2016 to 2020, the four areas that pose the highest threat of money laundering in Guyana in the following order: gold smuggling (US$2.2 billion), tax evasion (US$19.5 million), illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (US$13.4 million), and fraud (US$8.4 million). Other forms of money laundering amounted to US$29 million.
This reference, it contended, clearly shows that gold smuggling is far greater than the next three areas taken together. Further damning was the Risk Assessment Report conclusion that “No money-laundering investigations, much less prosecutions took place,” and that only two convictions occurred over the assessed period resulting in the confiscation of US$37,554.
The release delved further into the NRA’s assessment, noting that in 2016, it reported that 15,000 ounces of gold per week was smuggled out of Guyana. To bolster this claim, the following year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unearthed a major gold smuggling racket and provided the authorities in Guyana with a list of persons who had taken gold to the JFK Airport in New York.
Subsequently, in 2019 the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) recommended that a high-level team be established to do a comprehensive review of trading of the precious metal. Then in the second half of 2019, the FIU set about to determine whether there was information to support the assumptions that US dollars traded through the illegal roadside cambios and even legitimate cambios were being used to support illegal gold trade between Guyana and Venezuela during the period January 2018 to July 2019. The FIU report noted, “The smuggling was made possible because Customs and other Gold Board documents were recycled along with seals. Hundreds of millions of dollars of profits were being made.”
Prompted
Given the aforementioned details, the GHRA opined that the recent US direct action in the form of sanctions appears to be prompted by the government’s repeated silence and resistance to acting on their warnings.
The release proceeded to focus its attention on GGMC and its ability (if it so desired) to meaningfully combat the scourge of gold smuggling.
“The silent GGMC stands like a remote fortress impervious to allegations and disdainful of providing explanations. The GGMC, it should be emphasized, controls all aspects of the mining industry. It employs sophisticated electronic surveillance of all dredges in the interior. It records where every dredge is and when they move. GGMC also maintains detailed records of all licensing, production and declaration arrangements. None of this information is available to the public in open data formats and easily accessible.
Moreover, unlike other government agencies, GGMC is governed by its own Statute and salary scales”, the human rights body said.
The GHRA reminded that this was not its first critique of the mining agency and referenced a previous release where it stated, “Until that institution is thoroughly and urgently reformed from top to bottom, the scandalous squandering of Guyana’s natural mining assets and systematic undermining of community life of Guyana’s indigenous peoples will continue.” In that same release, it noted, it also rejected VP Jagdeo’s comment that “individuals at the junior level of Government must be responsible,” while stating that despite being responsible for over 70 per cent of Guyana’s oil & gold exports, the Agency’s audited accounts from 2012 onwards remained unavailable.
In view of its position that the GGMC cannot or will not rise to the task it is mandated to carry out, the GHRA feels that the best course of action is to have the agency investigated by international experts since local scrutiny may suffer from trust issues.
“The scale of the national and international allegations of serious mismanagement and criminality rule out any attempt by the government or the GGMC to mount an internal investigation of GGMC. Any attempt of this nature will generate deep scepticism, incredulity and distrust. The only credible response available to the Government of Guyana at this stage is to arrange the hand-over of the entire matter to a team of forensic investigators, with an international component, furnished with a mandate and full authority to examine, investigate and make recommendations on all aspects of the gold industry within a specific time frame”, the GHRA asserted.
