By Marvin Cato | HGP Nightly News|
BARTICA, GUYANA — Continuing his sweeping economic renaissance mission to systematically integrate everyday citizens into every lucrative corridor of the domestic economy, President Dr. Irfaan Ali has unveiled an ambitious strategy to establish a National Mining Consortium. The state-backed, world-class entity is engineered to allow small, medium, and large-scale miners alongside ordinary Guyanese to collectively pool resources, purchase top-tier extraction technology, and participate directly in large-scale mineral opportunities.
The Head of State made the milestone announcement on Friday evening during the official commissioning of Citizens Bank Guyana Inc.’s brand-new, multi-million-dollar branch in Bartica, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni). Known historically as Guyana’s premier “gold-mining town,” Bartica served as the ideal backdrop for a policy shift explicitly intended to reduce the local industry’s historical reliance on massive external multi-nationals and foreign concessionaires.
“It’s a new idea of the development of a national mining company that involves all of the large, medium, and small-sized miners and every Guyanese,” President Ali told the gathering of gold producers, banking executives, and township residents. “Instead of having large miners from around the world taking up the large-scale opportunity, we are going to build this national mining company together. We’re going to come together, create a consortium, buy the best technology, do all of the technical work, and move towards creating a world-class mining company owned by Guyanese, built by Guyanese.”
The President tightly linked the proposed mineral consortium to a rapid, structural overhaul occurring across Guyana’s wider financial architecture. He emphasized that the central government has spent the last year working intensely with commercial banking boards to expand grassroots capital access, transform consumer loan processing, and establish new wealth-building investment vehicles for local working families.
As a primary example of this localized financial integration, President Ali disclosed that active discussions are currently underway with Citizens Bank to establish a dedicated Guyana Development Bank support desk and a National Electronic Identification (E-ID) registration desk directly within the new Bartica branch infrastructure. This will streamline identity verification and drastically accelerate zero-collateral and interest-free loan applications for regional operators.
The long-term macro-economic objective, according to the President, is to shift from basic financial access to absolute economic independence. By laying down the groundwork for a future Junior Stock Exchange and rolling out diversified public equity portfolios across the mining, infrastructure, and industrial sectors, the administration aims to transform Guyanese families into corporate shareholders in high-yield industries traditionally reserved for ultra-wealthy foreign conglomerates.
