Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2019 News
Landlordism of small and medium-scale gold mining operations must be eliminated by 2040. The Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040 states that Government’s remit is to institute changes to phase out this occurrence over the next 20 years.
Landlordism is the practice whereby persons receive concessions from the state then, instead of carrying out their own mining operations, rent the lands to smaller miners in return for a percentage of proceeds from the activities.
Insiders of the regulatory body, Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), as well as others from the mining sector, have insisted that the practice of landlordism is widespread.
It appears that a significant portion of the mining lands has fallen into the hands of a few powerful businessmen, and concerns have been raised about this issue over many years.
According to GSDS: Vision 2040, several negatives arise from the landlord-tributor relationships. It reduces the profit margins of the licensees and, in turn, government’s access to finance. On top of that, the legal and environmental accountability of the licensees and their “tenants” are to some extent reduced.
Though the strategy didn’t call for a ban on the practice, it did recommend some institutional adjustments that could be implemented with hopes of mitigating landlordism. These implementations are meant also to strengthen the state’s administration of the sector.
GSDS recommends a substantial increase in annual mining permit fees, predicting that that would stimulate the “devolution of land from unproductive to productive firms”. In this regard, it added that higher production costs could be compensated by a progressive reduction in license fees. That reduction would kick in as gold declarations per acre increase.
In the long term, the royalty fees could be lowered. This wouldn’t just reduce landlordism. GSDS states that it would help to reduce smuggling.
Further, a limit could be placed on the number of licences per holder. At present, licencees are not limited, in that regard. Rentiers could also be assigned more responsibility, whereby the license holder (not the tributor) becomes legally responsible for the mining activities undertaken on the land.
GGMC, it notes, will need to be strengthened to provide technical and financial support for better compliance among license holders.
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