IT IS apparently nothing new for foreign companies, who have invested in Guyana, to acquire their own air transport to ease the financial burden that travelling to and from interior operating sites poses.

A number of foreign investors have been receiving the hammer by sectors under the notion of protecting local content involvement.
Canadian mining company, Guyana Goldfields, has been the latest investor whose operation has been questioned about its loyalty to local involvement. This was made an issue when the gold company, working its Region Nine’s Aurora location, decided to purchase its own Twin Otter aircraft to help cushion the billions of dollars in airfare likely to be racked up during the company’s life here.

Some aircraft operators and even pilots have however come in defence of the company’s aviation decision calling it “practical and business savvy”, while others have seen it as a shutting out of local business and a failure to develop local content.
This apparently was not the same tune being sung when foreign companies, seeking natural resources and providing services to both private and state, were allowed to acquire their own planes in the past.

As recent as 2013, a small single engine Cessna aircraft which crashed had landed on an elderly woman’s house in Sparendaam on the East Coast of Demerara, killing all its passengers. It was operated for and by foreign investors.

That same year another plane had crashed. It was also being operated for and by foreign investors exploring for uranium here. In the 80s, the defunct Home Oil of Canada did likewise exploring onshore oil and gas in the Karanambo-Rupununi area.
A Beechcraft King Air was also hired for low level surveillance over the Mazaruni and Cuyuni Rivers and currently foreign operators are providing helicopter service to ExxonMobil. “There were no complaints about those operations, so what is the real complaint against Goldfields,” one pilot questioned.

The Guyana Chronicle was told that over the years, investors operating in the interior have had air transport to be a major part of their operations. Local operators would have benefitted from those investments, but like any “smart” operator, companies will cut cost to grow their profit and maintain a balanced operation.
Guyana Goldfields said that the purchase of its Twin Otter was strictly for economic reasons.  The mining company said it was raking up a hefty flight bill that would have eventually had an adverse effect on its operations.

In a full page advertisement, Goldfields said it had expended over one billion dollars between Air Services Limited (ASL), Trans Guyana Airways, Roraima Airways and Wings Aviation in three years.