ONE LAW, TWO STANDARDS: GGMC WARNS SMALL MINERS ON TENURE TRANSFERS

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

ONE LAW, TWO STANDARDS: GGMC WARNS SMALL MINERS ON TENURE TRANSFERS — WHILE A $2.2 BILLION FOREIGN CHANGE OF CONTROL GOES UNEXPLAINED

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar- September 2026

The Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) issued a public advisory this week warning tenure holders against selling, assigning, or transferring mining lands outside the law — naming Irrevocable Powers of Attorney specifically as an instrument the Commission will not recognize as proof of ownership. The advisory is framed as a defense of “the integrity of the mining tenure system.” The 592 Guardian agrees the concern is legitimate. But the same statute GGMC invokes against small holders — Section 18 of the Mining Act — applies with equal force, and considerably higher stakes, to the largest corporate concession holders in the country. The record shows no evidence it has been applied to them at all.

THE LAW, AS WRITTEN

Section 18 of the Mining Act (Cap. 65:01) is unambiguous. A body corporate holding a mining license “shall not, without the prior consent in writing of the Minister” register a share transfer, or enter any arrangement, that has the effect of giving a person “control” of that body corporate. Control is defined precisely: twenty percent or more of issued equity shares, the power to appoint or block half the board, or command of two-fifths or more of voting rights. On an application for consent, the Minister must be satisfied that “the public interest would not be prejudiced by the change of control” before granting it and the Minister “may call for and obtain such information as he considers necessary” to make that decision.

This is not an obscure or discretionary courtesy. It is the statute’s central mechanism for ensuring that when control of a Guyana mining license changes hands, the State has been asked, has looked at the transaction, and has said yes.

THE TRANSACTION THAT SHOULD HAVE TRIGGERED IT

In April 2026, Canadian miner G Mining Ventures Corp. (GMIN) announced a definitive agreement to acquire all issued and outstanding shares of G2 Goldfields Inc. — not a fraction, not a stake, but total ownership; in a deal valued at approximately US$2.2 billion. The acquisition combined G2’s Oko-Ghanie project with GMIN’s Oko West project into what the companies themselves describe as a Tier-1, district-scale gold mining hub spanning over 362 square kilometres in Region Seven. G2 shareholders approved the arrangement in June 2026 with 99.99 percent of votes in favor; the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted final approval later that month; the transaction closed in July.

Oko West mining claim.

At every stage of that process — the shareholder vote, the court hearing, the closing — the approving authority was Canadian: the Ontario Superior Court and G2’s own shareholders, voting under Ontario corporate law. Nowhere in the extensive public record of this transaction; the joint press releases, the investor filings, the trade press coverage — does the Ministry of Natural Resources or the GGMC appear as a party whose written consent was sought or obtained under Section 18, despite this transaction constituting control many multiples over every threshold the section defines.

If a small miner needs the Commission’s approval to arrange a joint venture on a single claim, a foreign public company does not get to acquire total control of a license many times the scale of that claim by simply filing paperwork in Toronto.

THE QUESTION GGMC’S ADVISORY DOES NOT ANSWER

GGMC’s advisory this week is addressed to “tenure holders” in general terms, but its practical target is unmistakable: individual and small-scale operators using private agreements, receipts, and IPOAs to move claims informally. The Commission is right that these instruments are not lawful proof of tenure transfer, and right to insist that Joint Venture arrangements be “properly structured, documented, and submitted to the GGMC for consideration and approval.”

But the advisory is silent on the one class of transaction where Section 18 was written specifically to apply — corporate change-of-control among mining license holders and where the value at stake is not a single claim but a national gold district. If the Commission expects a small operator to submit a JV agreement for approval before any beneficial occupation occurs, it owes the public an equivalent account of how it satisfied itself, under Section 18(2), that “the public interest would not be prejudiced” by GMIN’s acquisition of G2 — a transaction of a scale the drafters of the Mining Act plainly had in mind when they wrote the twenty percent and two-fifths thresholds into law.

President Irfaan Ali was asked directly, at a recent press conference, whether the pattern of foreign firms “flipping” large-scale mining assets concerns his administration, and whether stronger policy is needed to ensure Guyana benefits directly from such transactions. He defended the practice, characterizing the transfer and sale of mineral properties among foreign mining companies as ordinary global mining industry activity, not unique to Guyana.

That answer addresses the economics of the deal. It does not address whether Section 18 consent was sought, reviewed, or granted

WHAT THIS PUBLICATION IS ASKING

The 592 Guardian is not asserting that Section 18 consent was withheld or ignored. We are asserting that no public record shows it was obtained; and that the absence of that record, set against an advisory publicly disciplining small holders under the same Act, creates the appearance of a two-tiered enforcement regime: one standard, rigorously stated, for Guyanese operating at the level of a single claim; a second, unstated and unevidenced, for foreign public companies restructuring national mineral assets worth billions. If that appearance is wrong, the remedy is simple — publish the proof.

FORMAL REQUESTS FOR THE RECORD

1, Confirm whether an application for Ministerial consent under Section 18 of the Mining Act was submitted in connection with G Mining Ventures Corp.’s acquisition of all issued and outstanding shares of G2 Goldfields Inc., and if so, the date of that application.

2.If consent was granted, produce the written instrument of consent, the date it was issued, and the public-interest determination the Minister made under Section 18(2) in reaching that decision.

3.If no application was made or no consent was granted, state on what legal basis the change of control affecting G2’s Guyana-registered mining licenses was permitted to proceed and be given effect within Guyana.

4.Disclose whether the Commission or Ministry has, in the past five years, required Section 18 consent for any other change-of-control transaction involving a foreign-incorporated mining license holder — and if so, name the transaction and the date consent was granted, for comparison against the record sought above.

5.State whether the Commission intends to apply the same documentation and approval standard it is now demanding of small tenure holders under threat of non-recognition of their instruments; to future changes of control among corporate concession holders operating at district scale.

These are not rhetorical questions. Section 18 gives the Minister the express statutory power to call for whatever information is necessary to make a consent determination; the Commission maintains records of licenses, their holders, and the conditions attached to them. The proof, if it exists, is a matter of producing a document already required by law to exist. Its absence would itself be the story.

The 592 Guardian will publish the Ministry’s and Commission’s response, in full, alongside this piece.

— The Board