The Presidency has secured amendments to the Barrick Gold contract that experts say increase the government’s share of the revenue generated by the mining. But in terms of environmental and other technical issues, the contract was not touched. Now the National Environmental Assembly (ANA) environmental network is asking Congress to open the discussion and for them to listen to observations on the environmental aspects. In a letter to the president of the senate and president of the Chamber of Deputies, ANA reminds Congress that the same Congress that approved the much criticized previous contract, now being amended, should not fast track this one again.
They request that they should be allowed to make a presentation to the commission in charge of reviewing the contract “so that they cannot claim they were unaware of the warnings about the use of cyanide in the country, the losses of productive farming lands, and the pollution of the rivers and disease caused among the population near the mined area.”