HGP Nightly News – A long-standing feature of Guyana’s gold-mining framework is now the subject of growing concern, as small miners and licensed interior shopkeepers claim that recent directives may be quietly dismantling a system they say has sustained mining communities for decades.
Under the Guyana Gold Board Act of 1981 and subsequent legislation enacted in 1994, licensed shopkeepers operating in mining districts are legally permitted to advance cash, goods, or supplies on credit to miners, with gold received in exchange once it is won through prospecting and mining. The law further requires that once gold is received, the transaction must be reported to the Guyana Gold Board within ten days, sold to the Board, and properly recorded for inspection.
Stakeholders say the intent of this provision is to support small and medium-scale miners working in remote interior locations, while ensuring that all gold remains within the formal, regulated system overseen by the Gold Board. However, shopkeepers claim they are now being informed by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) that they can no longer purchase gold.
At the same time, miners are reportedly being advised not to sell to shopkeepers, a development that miners and suppliers say could effectively undermine the long-standing credit arrangement. Those raising concerns argue that there has been no publicly announced amendment to the Act, no order laid in Parliament, and no known statutory instrument issued to suspend or remove the provision that allows shopkeepers to receive gold in exchange for credit.
Under Guyanese law, they note, only Parliament or a properly authorised legal instrument can alter what the Act permits. Critics therefore allege that the current situation amounts not to formal law enforcement, but to administrative action that treats an existing legal provision as if it no longer applies.Miners warn that the potential consequences could be severe.
Many small-scale operators working far from coastal centres say they cannot afford the cost or time required to transport gold to large dealers or Gold Board buying locations. For these miners, the local shopkeeper has traditionally served as the only practical link to the formal gold market, providing essential supplies, fuel, and cash flow in exchange for gold that ultimately reaches the Board.
If that link is removed, miners claim the likely outcome would be increased hardship in interior communities, the collapse of small operations, and a heightened risk of gold moving outside official channels, the opposite of what regulators seek to achieve. Stakeholders involved in the sector argue that unless the law is formally amended, the State cannot simply suspend a statutory right that Parliament deliberately put in place to support mining livelihoods and regulatory oversight.
