# COMING SOON: GACN INVESTIGATION
## The Christmas Eve Papers: How a Minister’s Son Got 2,300 Acres of Guyana’s Gold While the Nation Slept
**By Guyana Anti-Corruption Network (GACN)**
On December 24, 2025, while Guyanese families gathered around their homes for Christmas Eve celebrations, a very different kind of gift was being quietly wrapped in the corridors of power. Deep inside the Ministry of Natural Resources, documents were finalized granting 2,349 acres of state land in the mineral-rich Mazaruni Mining District to Javed Mustapha—the biological son of sitting Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha. The permits, approved on Christmas Eve, bypassed every competitive bidding requirement in Guyana’s mining laws. And to this day, they have never been published on the Official Gazette website, hidden from public view as effectively as presents hidden from children on Christmas morning.
The Guyana Anti-Corruption Network has obtained the full set of documents, including the PPMS permits GS8: M-1193/001/2025 and GS8: M-1193/000/2025, both bearing the December 24, 2025 approval date. Our investigation reveals that Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat signed an exemption order waiving Regulation 27B(2) of the Mining Act—the very regulation designed to prevent the private allocation of public mining lands by forcing them into public lottery or bidding processes. The timing was deliberate. The secrecy was calculated. And the beneficiary just happened to be the son of a cabinet colleague whose ministry has overseen the disappearance of billions of dollars through GUYSUCO subsidies and National Drainage and Irrigation Authority contracts.
This is not merely a story about a mining permit. It is a story about a family: a father who controls billions in public spending while his son accumulates unexplained wealth through real estate and a car dealership, and now stands to control nearly 2,400 acres of Guyana’s gold and diamond wealth. It is a story about a government that does its most consequential work when no one is watching—on Christmas Eve—and then hides the evidence from its own official website. It is a story about whether Guyana’s natural resources belong to its people or to a connected few.
**Full Investigation Publishing Soon**
The Guyana Anti-Corruption Network’s complete investigative report will reveal the exact coordinates of the mining blocks, the full property trail of Mustapha family assets valued into the billions, the documented pattern of NDIA contract abuses, the GUYSUCO subsidy black hole, and the paper trail connecting a Christmas Eve approval to a minister’s son. We will name names, show the documents, and provide the maps. And we will demand answers that those in power have so far refused to give.
This is the story they tried to bury in holiday cheer and digital omission. This is the story Guyana needs to read.
**Follow GACN for the full report.**
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