Corruption continues to plague the mining sector

Written by Yasmin Sanguino - Photos: Livio Quintero

Monday, December 15, 2008
While more than five thousand people took the tickets for the humanitarian aid offered by the national executive without having stepped on a mine, the real miners continue to receive official responses to its thousands of petitions
Ciudad Bolivar .- Without satisfactory answers continue miners Bolivar state by the national government due in part to alarming levels of corruption and inefficiency of the relevant agencies to verify whether the money delivered to date have come true or not affected.

This allegation was made Monday by Rodolfo Nimo, press secretary of the Trade Union of Workers of the Mining Industry in Bolivar state, who said that after several years of multiple efforts with the competent authorities towards finding solutions to problems that come to afflict this sector into extinction, the time is still going on and the conflict is far from solved by acquiring new challenges that limit its culmination in the short term.

According to the statement by Rodolfo Nimo cancellation of the aid offered had to come from some time now because through an agreement between the Ministry of People's Power for Basic Industries and Mining chaired then by the Khan El Chino Bank of Economic and Social Development of Venezuela were awarded 880 million bolivars strengths, which according to orders from the president should be invested in the development of this legal activity, and in the process of conversion and yet the facts speak for themselves .

Corruption rampant

The sensitivity of the subject, pointed to the complainant, is not just that so far it is not known where they went to stop these resources, but also that after 123 meetings in all the mining areas of the body where it arose about 1002 projects endogenous and self-development has not emerged any benefit for more than thirty thousand miners, while the majority stressed that proof of this lies in the fact that even Rodolfo Sanz was able to explain what was the final disposition of this significant amount of money.

Rodolfo Nimo for the explanation in this case can not be other than to blatantly infringing on the facts of fraud by the ministerial team, which was directly responsible for delivering part of humanitarian aid to beneficiaries without miners were evicted from the River Caroni, this case based on the alleged payment of 6072 tickets issued by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources awardees without specific, because at no time had the backing of a memorandum institutional certify that not only the exact amount of the same; so which were invalidated in 2007 by the then Vice-Minister of that body Merly Garcia in support of the points made in the entity by the former director of the regional atmosphere Oscar Padron.

But corruption, said Nimo, continuing to make their own because it gave the cancellation of thousands of tickets for a total of ten thousand strong bolivars for the most part to members of several missions and others engaged in unscrupulous trades without any review; while four thousand miners and five thousand workers linked to this area among divers, boaters, mechanics, cooks and tailings if they have been subjected to several opportunities to this request.




Authorities Indifferent

For all these reasons gave the declarant both the Minister Sanz, as well as the regional president and the military authorities of the institution not to continue to participate equally in this scam to the nation and was addressed by verifying the security controls of the state brought in the various mines in the region by Alcabalas waterways, land and airports or in the listings of the Institute of Malariology or why not through the electoral roll in order that they can determine once and for all how many are ultimately the real miners this zone.

And to finalize said Nimo to authorities as the Attorney General's Office to Safeguard of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General's Office to obtain the proper handling of these violations, because while it maintains the miners are waiting for some Response illegal mining continues to develop in a natural way in the Caroni Basin by the Brazilian citizen Sosa, Turkish gangs garimpeiros Jhonny and other Colombian, Brazilian and Guyanese who earn a daily basis for at least 1 million strong bolivars in gold and diamonds without The daily extraction of about 3 kilos of gold and significant quantities of diamonds in the Caura River for more than five hundred Indians.




Support Nil

Thanks to government indifference, said Rodolfo Nimo, the solutions to the conflict miner in the state have failed to materialize and proof of this would be the lack of logistical support for activities that strengthen and promote the endogenous development and self in this sector through the completion of the III National Mining Congress that would last for two days, but that has not been carried out by the lack of Bs F to 300 thousand invested in food, lodging and transportation for a few thousand people.