You may be right but in GRZ's case the permitting has moved past the Environmental permit stage and is now back with MIBAM. MINAMB had already agreed to issue the Initiation Act once MIBAM signed off on the new road location.

The need to change the road was only needed because MIBAM issued land parcels to local small miners that confilicted with the approval they had previously given to GRZ. The whole thing was a set-up IMO, as a road does not "sterilize resources", can easily be moved at any time, and most small miners would be delighted to have a free road built to their property.

Even though the road was rerouted to avoid those land parcels, the initiation act never arrived.

This administration in Venezuela uses approvals as political tools for agendas other than the stated purpose of the permit approval process.

They allowed Bolivar to completely flaunt the permit process (their mine was operating for quite some time without all permits and approvals). However when Goldfields took over they completely frustrated GFI by refusing a water use permit until GFI in gave up and sold to Rusoro, who apparently have no permit problems at all for exactly the same mine!

This similtaneous delay for both GRZ and KRY at different stages of the same process could be something similar, and the idea that Hugo is "holding" both projects until a favoured third party is ready to take over both and combine them on their own terms can't be ruled out.