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Govt. partly responsible for Troy Resources’s escape with $2.6 billion in unpaid royalties – Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday “accepted” that his government is partly responsible for Australian Gold Company, Troy Resources’ escaping with $2.6B in unpaid royalties.
“So I am accepting that we probably dropped the ball too,” Jagdeo told a Kaieteur News reporter at a Peoples Progressive Party (PPP/C) press conference held at Freedom House after it was pointed out to him that his government had failed to collect some US$1M in royalties from the company.
Jagdeo was seeking to shift most of the blame for “the great escape” by Troy Resources with Guyana’s cash on the previous David Granger-led administration. The Vice President in response to a recent Stabroek News article headlined, ‘PPP/C gov’t. fully to blame over unpaid Troy royalties’, said that it’s the coalition government that failed to collect the bulk of the $2.6B owed.
Jagdeo said that he learnt this after doing some digging and calling the General Manager of the Guyana Gold Board, Eondrene Thompson for some clarity. “So, she said to me in 2018, you had 5,639 ounces of gold in royalty that they should have paid, but did not pay. That is equivalent to the value of US$7.2 million or a Guyana dollar value of 1.5 billion dollars. So that is the bulk of the money already made there in unpaid royalties in 2018”, the Vice President noted.
He went on to mention that another $349M in royalties were not paid in 2020 followed by an additional US$1M (GYD$200M) for the year 2021.
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
Noting that some of the unpaid royalties were during PPP/C time in office, the Kaieteur News reporter asked, “Do you think that the criticism by some…is fair to say that government dropped the ball because while the APNU is to take some of the blame for being negligent in allowing that to accumulate, the PPP also dragged its foot in not taking a proactive stance on the matter soon as it got into office because it did accumulate as you say to one million US”.
Despite accepting that his government did drop the ball, Jagdeo was quick to justify why it ‘allowed the company to escape’ with US$1M more.
According to Jagdeo it was the period 2020 to mid-2021 and the country was on lock down due to Covid-19. “But just think about that period from August 2020 to August 2021 when they stopped producing, that was the era that we were in…the last thing you were thinking about at that time might be Troy Resources. You were just thinking about keeping people safe and getting them back to work and getting money to them like the $25,000 cash grant. We had to get that to every home, we were worried about that sort of thing, getting help to people”, Jagdeo said.
Guyana signed a gold deal with Troy Resources in 2014. They began working in 2015. Their operation lasted to close to six years with them raking in reportedly some 110,000 ounces of gold per year. The company reportedly ended its operation in 2021 after finding that the gold market was not feasible any more. It sold out some assets and escaped with $2.6B in owed royalties to the country.
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