Williams: No quarry licence was issued

He was speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall.

"I don’t know of the name ‘Jamaat.’ I remember back in the 1970 a group called ‘Darul Islam’ having a licence, and it is not in the area where the occupations (of the National Security forces) took place. So those folks who are there I am yet to find out who they are," he said. Williams said the ‘‘Darul Islam’’ group had a proper licence, but he did not know if these two groups were related.

Referring to Wednesday’s raid on the quarries in Valencia, Williams said the National Security Ministry was taking the action it was empowered to take. He said the Mineral Act of 2000 was deficient and a new law was required. However, because this would take longer than expected, Government has decided to bring new regulations into effect as a "stop-gap measure" in order to issue licences for quarrying and "to effect the day-to-day operations for the much-need aggregate."

"We will seek to cure some of the defects of the Mineral Act in the regulations, while continuing the work aimed at bringing a new act and repealing the Mineral Act of 2000," Williams said.

The minister said people who were on lands legally, who were paying their royalties and taxes and who through no fault of their own (ie failure of the State to have proper legal machinery) did not have their licences properly extended, would be given due consideration and priority when new licences are being issued. "It is not their fault the situation is what it is," he said. "However, those other enterprising individuals, those people who decided that they would illegally occupy State lands clearly would have no legal claim," he said.

Williams said the new Mineral Act will establish a quarries management authority and will operate on the basis of a geological survey that maps all of the country’s resources.

Williams said Government had not yet decided how it would go about granting new lands for quarrying— whether it would be a bidding process or not. He stressed that Government had to come up with an equitable method which would cater for both the big and small operators in the industry, and one which would protect the State and the ecology of the country.