The manganese was transported from Matthews Ridge via a 64-kilometre (40 mi) railway and then shipped from Port Kaituma to Chaguaramas Bay in Trinidad, from where it was distributed for industrial use with a large proportion going to Stavanger in Norway.

Matthews Ridge was highlighted as a potential new capital city,[8] and within Port Kaituma a large secondary school was constructed to educate students sent from all over Guyana.

The first killings of the November 1978 Jonestown deaths occurred in Port Kaituma when Leo Ryan, a US Congressman from California, and others were gunned down while boarding a small Twin Otter aircraft on the local airstrip.

In the aftermath and clean-up operation that ensued, the Guyanese Government prohibited any dead bodies from being buried on the site of the commune.

Today, Kaituma serves as the gateway to the nearby jungle where the now predominant industry of small-scale gold mining takes place.

[10] The transient nature of many of these pork-knockers (gold miners) has led to problems of gun crime, robbery, murder and bribery in the unpoliced hinterlands.