Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday criticised government’s treatment of Troy Resources Guyana Inc and accused Junior Social Protection Minister Keith Scott of incompetence.
“They knew the company had cash flow problems. They knew this was coming but they are so incompetent they couldn’t deal with it,” Jagdeo said at his weekly press conference.
He went on to argue that it was clear that the company was already on the precipice and instead of mitigating the impact the problems would have on its workforce, government, through Scott, “pushed it over.”
On Monday, the mining company terminated more than 300 employees following after having them stand down for weeks in wake of a “cease order” issued following the death of geologist Ryan Taylor at a Troy site.
In response, Cabinet on Tuesday said it was distressed at the “unconscionable” termination of employees which occurred “without reasonable notice being given to the workers, their union or the ministries of Social Protection and Natural Resources.”
Jagdeo on Thursday contrasted this reaction with the reaction of his government to the woes of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa).
“Personally, as president, I went to visit and put in special arrangements. We took over power, we took over water, and we started giving grants but this Cabinet issues a statement. We took action; we didn’t issue a statement,” Jagdeo mocked.
He questioned how Cabinet’s distress would secure jobs for workers and questioned the government’s credibility in criticising the timing of the terminations. “How can you speak with credibility when you did the same to sugar workers at Wales and didn’t pay severance for two and a half years? Troy has given a date for severance payment,” he stressed.
While government has argued that the company’s actions were not reasonable, Troy’s Managing Director Ken Nilsson has repeatedly said that the laws of Guyana only provided for a “stand down of workers for six weeks” after which the company had two choices: either reinstate workers with full payment or dismiss them.
He stressed that currently Troy Resources lacks the funds for reinstatement and therefore decided to dismiss the workers.
Government in turn has called on the company to take all measures to ensure that its action does not bring further distress to workers and their families and Cabinet has appointed a sub-committee to further examine this matter and engage Troy Resources with a view to reactivating its mining operations expeditiously.
It also said Cabinet assures each of the dismissed workers that it will take steps to protect their rights and to bring redress in the shortest possible time.
Two days after Taylor’s death on October 8th while working on the construction of a “bench” in a mining pit, Scott issued a cease order which covered all of Troy’s operations.
Five days later, Minister of Social Protection Amna Ally rescinded the order but Troy suspended operations after what it said the order was the knee-jerk reaction by Scott.
In a statement on the same day, the company had said that the cease order came as a surprise since the ban included all mining areas rather than isolating the area where the incident occurred.
It argued that the stop order was inconsistent with normal protocol in such situations. Normal protocol, it argued, is to cordon off the area of the incident, being the Hicks 1 Exten-sion Trench, a process the company had already undertaken immediately after the death. Having taken this action, Troy expressed surprise at the cease order, which covered all mining areas, including the Smarts 3 and Larkin Pits, which are not where the fatal accident occurred.
Nilsson has also said that the company has been the victim of an uneven political playing field. “The minister’s response [a cease order] seemed more of a political agenda. It’s not a level playing field,” he said.
Nilsson has, however, also acknowledged that the company has been in trouble for months. “Over the last six months the company has struggled because of very poor developments and we need to get some of our resources back into production. If I was the way most people are, I would have terminated about 100 persons about three months ago. I chose to keep them on and paid the penalty; paying wages to people who were not really working. Everybody that works here knows this. Everybody was expecting to get laid off but I didn’t do that,” he told reporters during a tour of its Karouni mine in Cuyuni/Mazaruni last week.
