Gonsalves defends quarry permit to St Lucian miner

Prime Minister of St Vincent & the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves is defending his government’s decision to lease property to a St Lucian company for a stone quarry, saying it will create jobs and boost the construction industry.

Rayneau Gajadhar, a St Lucian businessman, told the told the Caribbean Media Corporation that the Gonsalves administration had leased him 58.8 acres of land for 30 years for the operation of the quarry, and all the necessary documents had been lodged with the relevant authorities.

Gajadhar, the managing director of Rayneau group of companies, said 99 per cent of the aggregate produced at the quarry will be exported.

Speaking on a local radio programme, Gonsalves noted that the mining project was good for the country’s development.

“St Vincent has so much stone, we’re like a big stone heap with good soil covering it over the years. And there are places, which are very suitable for quarries, and economical, and you can get the better quality stones for the purposes of the quarrying,” he said. “I’m not an expert in those areas, clearly, but I’m told that’s a very good site.”

Gonsalves spoke as residents of North Leeward, including farmers, were objecting to the quarry and the manner in which the work started without any public consultation.

The PM said that the farmers, who were cultivating the lands under a leasehold agreement with the government, would be relocated, saying it did the same for farmers that had been working the land that the government wanted for its geothermal energy project.

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“I can’t say that a man who has five acres may get back five acres. You may get back three, depending on the land that is available,” said Gonsalves. “You may have five acres and you get three, but the three which you have might be more valuable than the five that you had. But I want to give them the assurance that they’d be properly compensated for their crops,” he added.

Opposition Leader Dr Godwin Friday has dismissed as “lame excuses” the explanation given by the government as to why residents of North Leeward were not consulted about a quarry being set up in their area.

“The reason they didn’t is because they felt two things. Either that they felt that they didn’t have to, because they don’t really care what the people think, or that they were afraid to test their ideas in a free flow of ideas and discussion with the people in the community,” Friday said on his weekly radio programme on Monday.

Friday told his radio audience that when residents are provided with information, they can judge the pros and cons of a project.

“But with no information at all, they’re left in the dark,” he said, adding that the message being sent was ‘take it or leave it’.

“And government says, likewise, ‘You can’t stop us because we have power’. That is not a democracy. That is not the way in which you function in the interests of the people,” he said.

Gonsalves said the quarry was located in an area that would not cause a dust nuisance for persons. “And it’s located where they can build a jetty – small jetty – so that they can barge stuff,” Gonsalves added, reiterating that the island needs the material that the quarry would produce.

He added that the project, while private-sector driven is also regulated by the state, and should therefore not lead to problems of the past where stone crushers would mine aggregate in areas that impacted that sea.

“But you’re dealing now with an actual quarry,” he said.

CMC