Gold sales can bring in more revenue

Dear Editor,
I’ve been following Guyana’s gold production since my foray into the Mazaruni in August 1974. It’s inconceivable that over the past five years gold production has been falling at a time when the price of gold has been breaking all records! I have a nine-point plan to plug the gold loss/smuggling haemorrhage, as follows:
1. Visit each gold camp for a week under the guise of rendering gold-recovery support to establish true production. This will be compared with declared production.
2. Encourage the miners to declare true production. Such figures can be used to obtain a loan from the lending agencies. This will form the basis of an annual gold production certificate.
3. Stimulate the miners to declare true production/sales, as this will be the modus operandi of a possible sale or merger. The formula being:
value of asset = 3 x annual sales
4. Check on workers who suddenly take a day’s leave and stay in camp. Are they taking a laxative while in camp? Some workers have been known to swallow nuggets while diving!
5. Can the mine afford a body scanner? It can be used to scan each worker leaving the production area.
6. Ban the flight of drones over the mining areas apart from those on medical missions and forestry surveillance duties.
7. All motor vehicles must be thoroughly searched at the borders. Examination ramps must be constructed at such borders to check vehicles for false bottoms.
8. Body scanners must be installed at all borders.
9. A mining camp should be a restricted area. Entry of outsiders should be prohibited, unless by prior arrangement. By corollary, employed miners should be debarred from leaving the camp between the hours of 18:00h and 06:00h. Such a curfew should be rigorously enforced.
I’m convinced that gold sales can bring in more revenue to the exchequer than oil ever will.

Yours sincerely,
Ken Seecharran