Guyana to strengthen programme to clean up Int’l diamond trade

Minister of State Joseph Harmon on Friday announced that Government will be engaging a legal consultant to enable review of a programme in Guyana, which was established to clean up the international diamond trade.

The Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which was established in 2003, is a joint governments, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments.

In Guyana, the KPCS is being administered by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) with support from the Customs Trade Administration and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).

The last review in Guyana was conducted in 2014 when a team from KPCS piloted a one-week Peer Review exercise aimed at, among other things, certifying that conflict diamonds are not being mixed with Guyana’s and exported.

Minister Harmon at a post-Cabinet press briefing explained that a request was made by Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman to engage with the legal consultant in relation to the scheme locally.

Though Guyana’s diamond production is not great enough to be suspicious of financing wars and terrorisms, Harmon said the programme is critical.

“It’s not just about the diamond production in the world; it is the fact that you can have infiltrated into the Guyana’s diamond production, diamonds from that blood diamond source. It (the programme) tries to clean up the blood diamonds infiltrating the local market,” he explained.

He expanded that the scheme is to ensure blood diamonds do not contaminate the local diamond production and create a situation where the credibility of the minerals produced in Guyana is questioned.