Dear Editor,
Dem Boys in de waterfall paper seh a lot, but they need to member dat every rope gat two ends and they never called to get Guyana Goldfields end of the rope, when deh seh, “dem shareholders and Guyana Goldfields cussin one anodda”.
Dem aught to be careful wid who dey get their information from because not all skin teeth ah laugh. Dis boy is a serious boy and woulda not put two feet into Guyana Goldfields river without knowing how deep river is. We are a serious company tryin to do de rite tings, de rite way.
We are declarin all gold and de Government of Guyana is at de mine as de gold is pored. We are not sheddin dem Guyanese workers. We have 729 Guyanese employees and more dan 300 contractas at de mine site and hope to hire more.
I invite dem boys to come and visit de mine in person because if yuh eye nah see, yuh mouth nah must talk. I promise you it is not de “Government of Guyana gettin play like a yo-yo”. I think dem boys will find dat nah every crab hole get crab and dem boys bein fed rotten crab by someone. We are a partna in Guyana’s development and have nuttin to hide from no one including de waterfalls paper. We take members of de press and de Government to the mine regularly.
For my friends in the diplomatic community and other foreigners, below is a translation of the above paragraph in English, plus one other paragraph with additional information you should read.
To the Guyanese, I apologise for my less than perfect Creolese and encourage them to listen to both sides of the story.
This Boy, Says to Dem Boys
Dem Boys at Kaieteur News say a lot, but they need to remember that there are two sides to every story and they never contacted Guyana Goldfields to get our side of the story when they printed, “The shareholders of Guyana Goldfields are cussing one another”. They should be careful with whom they get their information from because not everyone who smiles at you is your friend. I am a serious person and I would not join Guyana Goldfields without knowing the full situation.
We are a serious company trying to do the right things, the right way. We are declaring all gold and the Government of Guyana is on site as the gold is poured. We are not letting employees go. We have 729 Guyanese employees and more than 300 contractors at the mine site, and we hope to hire more.
I invite Dem Boys to come and visit the mine in person because you should not talk bad without first getting all the facts. I promise you, it is not the Government of Guyana that, “is getting played like a yo-yo”. I think that Dem Boys will find that not everything turns out to be as you expect it to be, and in this case, Dem Boys are being fed misinformation. We are a partner in Guyana’s development, and we have nothing to hide from anyone, including Kaieteur News. In fact, we regularly take members of the press and the Government to visit the mine and its operations.
The Kaieteur News also ran an article on Sunday that implies that Guyana Goldfields is somehow taking advantage of the Government and people of Guyana with tax concessions as part of our investment agreement. We are not taking advantage of anyone. We are a publicly traded company in Canada in good standing with all laws and regulations. Yes, we are a for-profit business and the business of a business is to make money for its owners, which in our case are our shareholders.
If you look at our publicly released financial information, you will see that for 2018, the Government of Guyana received US$14,983,000 in royalties and the company’s net earnings were US$5,367,000 after expenses. Government getting almost three times more than the company’s profit without investing a cent. Not a bad deal anywhere. Mining in remote areas is not cheap and the cost of transporting, feeding, and caring for 750 employees and more than 300 contractors, almost 1000 who are Guyanese, is not cheap and all of this money is spent with more than 255 local suppliers, contractors, and companies.
We pay payroll taxes on all these employees. We pay VAT on our local purchases. We have been here for 22 years and made no money for the first 19 years, yet we invested well over US$200 million of our money to get the mine operational. In fact, in total, we have invested more than US$400 million. There is no company in Guyana that could have done this in this remote part of the Essequibo, which is threatened by a foreign power to the west.
Concessions like VAT exemptions for Foreign Direct Investment in remote areas are very normal throughout the world; and frankly, without such incentives, the jobs and contributions to the economy these investments bring likely would never materialise. Again, we are a serious publicly traded company that is under attack by a group of dissident shareholders. We look forward to the vote on May 22.
Nuff nuff sehd.
Perry Holloway,
Snr Vice-President,
Guyana Goldfields
