Su holds mining permits for over 40,000 acres

Controversial naturalized Chinese national, Su Zhi Rong holds gold and diamond mining permits that account for over 40,000 acres of land in Berbice and regions seven, eight and one, according to Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GYEITI) records.

This is in addition to the major assets he owns here alongside business operations in fuel, construction and logging.

According to Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) records of active mining permit holders for persons who hold more than 1,200 acres of gold and diamond mining lands, Su’s acreage totals over 40,000. He has 10 permits under his name, 10 that were transferred to him by a John Quail and 21 under his construction company High Tech Construction.

Su’s 10 permits in his name total nearly 12,000 acres and were issued on the 3rd June 2014. The mining lands for Quail, located in Berbice, were issued on May 15th, 2015, while High Tech’s mining permits were issued between December of 2014 and January of 2015.

What is unclear is how Su came to know of the availability of the lands and how his applications were processed and approved when many Guyanese bemoan the sloth in their applications for permits for smaller plots of lands.

This newspaper reached out to the GGMC for a response but several calls to Commissioner Newell Dennison went unanswered.

Su’s name was put to Guyana’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo by VICE News in an interview last month. A VICE journalist claimed in the interview that Su told the media entity that he took bribes for Jagdeo. The Vice President has vehemently denied the claims and President Irfaan Ali has also dismissed them and said that his government is above board. Jagdeo has said that Su has denied these claims but Su has not spoken to the media directly.

The claims will be developed into a programme for broadcast centred on the contention that Chinese businessmen here had been claiming that bribes were taken in return for moving projects along.

Notably, Su’s business associate from the controversial Baishanlin logging company, Chu Hong Bo also has a vast amount of lands under several permits. Chu has mining permits listed by GGMC for concessions totaling over 100,000 acres in his name and that of his New East International Inc business.

Both men had been photographed with Minister of State Joseph Harmon when he was on a controversial trip to China in 2016.

As reported by this newspaper, Su Zhi Rong (also known as Su Zhirong) has been operating in Guyana since before 2006 and was the recipient of a large lumber concession under his company, Rong–An Inc.

Rong-An Inc. was incorporated here in 2006 and had submitted an application the same year for authorisation to undertake large-scale logging and the operation of a portable sawmill within SFEP 02/ 2011, located on the right bank of the Berbice River and left bank of the Corentyne River in Region six. The company had said that it would be plugging some US$20 million into the investment.

It had received a State Forest Exploratory Permit (SFEP) from the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) designated 2/2011 for an area of 57,929 hectares of forest resources.

Then, the company said the  project would have a life span  of at least 50 years with Rong-An- Inc. pledging to invest more than US$50 million in Guyana in various sectors, including an initial US$20 million in the forestry sector.

Rong-An Inc. and fellow Chinese company Baishanlin have been the source of much controversy over their forestry operations here over the years.

However, in 2017, the company, along with R.L. Sukhram and Sons Sawmill, was awarded two lots totaling over 800,000 hectares of the former Barama Company Limited (BCL) concession. Parcel 1 is a forest area of the size 417,809.23 hectares and was given to Su while Parcel 2, a forest area of size 432,262.59 hectares was given to Sukhram.

Then, the GFC had said that the projects would yield a total investment of US$9.5 million by 2020 and the creation of 524 jobs when the operations were at full scale.

In addition to lumber, last year Su was granted a quarrying licence for over 2000 acres of land in Region seven.

Under the company, Southern Canton International Trading Inc., Su applied for a quarry licence to operate within the Mazaruni mining district, saying it had a planned investment of US$11.7 million.

The company was granted the licence for 2,289 acres for quarry potential, referred to as Turiruba in the Korerit and Mazaruni Rivers.

Aside from lumber and quarrying, Su is also listed as the head of the China Zhonghao Inc. company which shares the same business address with Rong-An Inc and has a bulk fuel facility at the Falls gas station on the East Bank of Demerara. It stores fuel for a number of local dealers and has boasted of its capacity.

It was the Falls storage facility that was referred to by Atlantic Fuel Inc (AFI) in 2020 when the GRA seized its import consignment of 635,353 litres of diesel fuel saying that it was illegal.

Su’s Hi-Tech Construction Inc says that it is an international company. “Incorporated in 2011 and headquartered in Georgetown, Guyana. Relying on its abundant experience and ability to innovate, Hi- Tech is now focusing on sustainable logging, mining and land development,” the company’s profile states.

“Hi-Tech Construction Inc. has its forest concession of around 100,000 hectares and mining concession of around 300 hectares. Hi-tech implements industry-developed best management practices to ensure that future generations will benefit from healthy forests, clean air and water, recreational opportunities, and of course, timber and mineral products. As a responsible part of logging and mining business, Hi-Tech strives to exceed all safety standards through continued training, smart recruiting, communication at all levels and constant maintenance of equipment. As an active part of environment protectors, Hi-Tech ensures that all harvesting operations and mining operations are conducted under strict guidelines and regulations designed to protect the environment at every level. Apart from its experience in logging and mining,” it added.

Hi-Tech also boasted that it has “a long history of enabling countless people to fulfill the dream of land ownership.”