The Guyana gov­ern­ment Tues­day said that it had con­cealed an agree­ment with the Aus­tralian-head­quar­tered min­ing com­pa­ny, Troy Re­sources Guyana Inc (TR­GI) that at one point was one of the largest gold pro­duc­ers here.

The Min­istry of Nat­ur­al Re­sources said in a state­ment that the de­ci­sion to can­cel the li­cence was tak­en in light of Troy Re­sources’ fail­ure to rem­e­dy its de­fault con­cern­ing sev­er­al mat­ters, in­clud­ing pay­ment of out­stand­ing roy­al­ties, rental fees, non-com­pli­ance with the work pro­gramme, and mat­ters re­lat­ing to en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Guyana is com­mit­ted to safe­guard­ing the na­tion’s in­ter­ests and en­sur­ing that the po­ten­tial ben­e­fits of the Karouni Min­ing Site con­tin­ue to con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment of Guyana.

“The Karouni Min­er­al Agree­ment is­sued to Troy Re­sources Guyana Inc., Troy Re­sources Lim­it­ed and Pharsalus Gold Inc., and the Min­ing Li­cence are now both can­celled and ter­mi­nat­ed,” the state­ment said.

The com­pa­ny has not yet re­spond­ed to the gov­ern­ment’s state­ment, which al­so sought to high­light what it said were the “key facts about the can­cel­la­tion of TR­GI’s li­cense and agree­ment”

It said on Oc­to­ber 16, 2014, it en­tered in­to a Min­er­al Agree­ment with TR­GI and oth­er stake­hold­ers, which cen­tred on the de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tion of a min­ing project at the Karouni Prop­er­ty and that TR­GI com­menced op­er­a­tions with the first gold poured in No­vem­ber 2015.

Af­ter a few years of min­ing op­er­a­tions TR­GI re­port­ed­ly en­coun­tered “op­er­a­tional is­sues and re­quired or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing” and the com­pa­ny went in­to “care and main­te­nance” in ear­ly 2021 and de­spite com­mit­ments to re­sume its op­er­a­tions, TR­GI failed to do so and even ap­proached the gov­ern­ment with pro­pos­als to liq­ui­date its as­sets.

The state­ment said this was re­ject­ed for sev­er­al rea­sons in­clud­ing the fact that the pay­ment of out­stand­ing sums was not be­ing ad­dressed prompt­ly un­der the pro­pos­al. How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment re­mained en­gaged with a view to have min­ing restart­ed and out­stand­ing debts set­tled.

The state­ment said that “TR­GI owes the gov­ern­ment above GUY$2.6 bil­lion (One Guyana dol­lar=US$0.004 cents) for un­paid roy­al­ties.

“This sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial li­a­bil­i­ty, cou­pled with oth­er con­cerns, has led to the can­cel­la­tion of the li­cense. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has tak­en the nec­es­sary steps to have these sums paid.

“It is im­por­tant to note that de­spite the Guyana Gold Board’s (GGB) dis­ap­proval and the sus­pen­sion of TR­GI’s ex­ports due to out­stand­ing roy­al­ties owed,” the state­ment said the last ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2019, “took the de­ci­sion to over­ride the GGB ex­port re­stric­tions and thus TR­GI was al­lowed to re­sume ex­ports, hence the roy­al­ties owed to the GOG”.

Fur­ther­more, the gov­ern­ment said, it learnt that Troy Re­sources had re­port­ed­ly en­tered in­to re­ceiver­ship and ini­ti­at­ed the process of liq­ui­dat­ing its as­sets and hold­ings.

“The lack of man­age­ment and aban­don­ment of the site by TR­GI led to the raid­ing of the min­ing lands, lar­ce­ny of items, de­struc­tion of key as­sets, and a se­ries of oth­er il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of com­pa­nies and sub-con­trac­tors are re­port­ed to be owed mil­lions of dol­lars for goods and ser­vices pro­vid­ed and were await­ing pay­ment from TR­GI.

“We have seen re­ports of work­ers who were not paid for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods, these mat­ters are en­gag­ing the Min­istry of Labour,” the sta­teem­nt said, not­ing that cog­nisant of the in­for­ma­tion the Guyana gov­ern­ment has can­celled and ter­mi­nat­ed the Min­er­al Agree­ment and Min­ing Li­cense.

“Fur­ther, the Gov­ern­ment has tak­en pos­ses­sion of the min­ing site and all re­main­ing ma­te­ri­als,” the state­ment said, adding that to date, the gov­ern­ment has tak­en proac­tive mea­sures to en­sure the Karouni min­ing site re­mains vi­able and does not fall in­to ru­in.

“The GGMC, Corp of War­dens, Guyana Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (GRA) and the Guyana Po­lice Force (GPF) are all in­volved in the mon­i­tor­ing and en­force­ment pa­trols at the Karouni site,” the state­ment not­ed.