Miners must take up potential Omai slack
-Benn at annual awards ceremony
Stabroek News
November 29, 2003
Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Robeson Benn says the outlook for the gold industry remains precarious with the impending closure of Omai Gold Mines Ltd.
Benn was delivering the feature address at a special awards ceremony for miners at the GGMC's headquarters on Brickdam.
Omai topped the list for the largest declared producer for raw gold last year with a total of 319,573 ounces.
Benn told the miners that Omai was now faced with the challenge of finding new reserves and if this was not achieved the possibility existed that the company could pull out of Guyana in another two years.
With such a situation, Benn called on local miners to be prepared to take up the challenge of producing the amount which would have been otherwise produced by Omai.
"I know it is a big task which cannot be avoided, but you the local producers would have to sustain the gold production," Benn said.
In terms of sand and stone, Benn said production and declaration in these areas had been good, but there were still a lot of miners who were not making accurate declarations. To this end he called for an improved level of declaration for next year.
He observed that the industry was still short of the standards required in relation to occupational health and safety. Benn told the miners that they had to work to reduce the many accidents.
He said the shift in the crime situation to the interior this year had had a damaging effect on gold and diamond production overall. GGMC, in collaboration with the Guyana Police Force, has set up security checkpoints in mining districts to ward off criminal attacks. Benn said the arrangement was still in place. Some of the miners who spoke to this newspaper yesterday said they were also fighting off malaria.
Already for this year there have been several armed robberies most of which were committed on foreign miners. Two Brazilian miners: Jose Soares Silvo Filho and Paulo Moura da Silva were killed in the months of September and October and there have been other murders of Guyanese.
Meanwhile, since the checkpoint was set up at Itaballi on the Puruni Road at the turnoff to Aremu/Quartz Stone there has a been reduction in attacks.
Benn commented that production results were exceptional last year: "We had exceptional results in the production of gold and diamond last year by traditional miners, but not so this year."
A total of 23 miners were awarded for outstanding performances in the areas of gold, diamond, sand, stone and bauxite production for last year.
For the production of gold in the medium scale category, Alfro Alphonso came out on top with the declaration of 4,853 ounces of gold, while, Chunilall Baboolall achieved 3,558 in second place and North American Resources, 2,882 in third place.
In the small-scale category Compton Davis topped with 1,667, J.J. M. Mining came second with 1,361 and Kevin Jeffrey, third with 1,071.
For medium scale diamond production, Guyana Gold Company Ltd came out on top with 5,794.71 metric carats, Vincent Primus, second with 2,577.25 and third place went to Uniao Mining and Commercial Company with 2,003.61.
In the small scale category Gem's Diamond Trading owned by Ronison Thomas emerged winner with 7,759.08 metric carats, Aquarius Mining Inc, second with 3,978.12 and third place, North Mining Inc 2,663.02
For large-scale sand production R.M.C Silica Inc. topped with 34,000 tonnes, followed by Udho Raghoo with 64,000 and third place William T. Dalgety, 23,700. In the area of stone, Baracara Quarries (Monkey Jump) came out on top with 25,453 short tonnes, Mazaruni Granite Products Ltd, second 18,200 metric tonnes and third place Baracara Quarries (Big Hope) 8,093 short tonnes. Bermine and then Linmine.