By Travis Chase | HGP Nightly News |
A little-known but critical provision of Guyana’s gold laws has moved to the centre of growing concern within the mining sector, as small and medium-scale miners warn that recent administrative directives could effectively dismantle the economic system that has sustained interior mining communities for decades.
At issue is a long-standing provision in the Guyana Gold Board Act of 1981, which was reaffirmed in successor legislation passed in 1994. The law explicitly allows licensed shopkeepers operating in mining districts to advance money, goods, or supplies to miners on credit, in exchange for gold produced through prospecting and mining.
Under the legislation, once gold is received, the shopkeeper is legally required to report the transaction to the Guyana Gold Board within ten days, sell the gold directly to the Board, and maintain detailed records available for inspection. The provision was designed to strike a balance between supporting miners operating in remote interior regions and ensuring that all gold enters the formal regulatory system.
However, shopkeepers and miners now say they have been informed by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) that they can no longer purchase gold. At the same time, miners report being advised not to sell gold to shopkeepers, effectively dismantling a credit-based system that has functioned lawfully for more than forty years.
Critically, there has been no amendment to the Act, no order laid before Parliament, and no publicly issued lawful instrument by a minister or other competent authority removing or suspending the provision. Legal observers and mining advocates argue that the law remains in force, and that ignoring it amounts not to enforcement, but to administrative sidestepping.
Small miners warn that the consequences could be severe. Many operate far from coastal centres and lack the resources to travel long distances to sell gold directly to large dealers or designated Gold Board buyers. For these miners, the local shopkeeper often represents the only practical link between their operations and the formal gold market—providing fuel, food, equipment, and essential cash flow in exchange for gold that ultimately reaches the Gold Board.
Industry stakeholders caution that removing this link could push small miners out of business, deepen economic hardship in interior communities, and create incentives for gold to drift outside official channels—undermining the very oversight and accountability the regulatory system is meant to protect.
What is unfolding, miners argue, is not meaningful regulatory reform but administrative overreach, one with potentially irreversible consequences for small-scale mining and the livelihoods that depend on it.
