Dear Editor
THE letter captioned “our plight as pioneer exploration workers” published in the Chronicle newspaper of Friday, April 12th, 2019, is just a continuation of paid writers tasked with spreading propaganda against the original founders and developers of the Aurora Mine.
Aranka Gold Inc has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Guyana Goldfields since 2009. On July 30th, 2018, Mr. Patrick Sheridan, one of the founders of and original investors in Guyana Goldfields, was given the boot by persons hired to run and operate the mine. Since that date, Mr. Patrick Sheridan was no longer responsible for any business to do with Guyana Goldfields or any of its wholly owned subsidiaries.

The persons who replaced Mr. Sheridan closed down all the greenfields exploration projects and announced that they were now focusing on brownfields exploration (closer to the mine) Please see press release of August 2018. All exploration workers were severed and their outstanding payments paid in full.

Messrs.. Dexter Felix and Herman Welcome referenced by the newspaper letter writers are part of the original pioneer exploration workers who have worked with Mr. Sheridan since 1996. These men have received their full severance payments and now work for Mr. Sheridan’s new exploration company G2-Goldfields. Both Mr. Welcome and Mr. Felix have stated that they have never worked in exploration, with neither of the two letter writers and have no recollection of meeting with them at any time.

However, should these two individuals wish to pursue their “claims” of non-payment, then my advice is for them to contact the Guyana Goldfields office, now housed in the Charles Ceres building at Liliendaal.

The “claimants” parting note about anyone being thrown out or in at Goldfields Annual General Meeting is pure nonsense, since both Mr. Scott Caldwell and Mr. Patrick Sheridan are very experienced in the mining industry; so whatever the outcome of the May meeting it is just business! And I am sure that they will just move on to another resource.
In the outer world or in Guyana’s parlance in “foreign,” these proxy fights and betrayals are common place in business, but to us in Guyana it is considered to be more serious. In the end, what we as Guyanese need to focus on is that the Aurora resource is part of the patrimony of the Guyanese people and at all times we the people and the government need to be very vigilant in ensuring that the persons tasked with managing and extracting our resource do so safely and get the most out of it for our benefit.

Regards
E. Edwards