Laid – off Troy Resources workers still to be paid

Nov 11, 2021 News

Months later…

Kaieteur News – Three months after a number of local workers from the Australian Mining Company, Troy Resources were laid-off they are still to receive their severance cheques.

A massive processing plant that was set up by Troy Resources at Karouni.

In response to the workers’ fears that they might not be paid for the upcoming holidays, the company through it spokesperson, Ajay Baksh, stated that it is doing everything possible to pay them “urgently”.
Baksh exact words were, “Troy Resources Guyana acknowledges their obligations to laid-off employees and are doing everything possible to honour these obligations urgently.”
Kaieteur News understands that the company had promised to pay the workers within six weeks of them being sent home, but more than ten weeks have passed and they are still to be paid.
This newspaper had managed to speak with some of these affected workers. One of them, a woman (name provided) said, “for some of us our six weeks are up, we have persons who have been laid off since July-August and some in September. So a lot of people who have been laid-off and they have not been paid.” She added, “and they have not been calling us to tell us anything. They were quick to give us our lay off letter but slow in terms of the payment.”
The ex-Troy employee explained that they are the ones who have to keep checking for their money and would get the worn out excuse that the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ken Nilsson had died and it is awaiting cheques from Australia.
However, as the days go by the employees are becoming worried that they will not be paid anytime soon. Another worker related: “at this point in time jobs are hard to find and no one is calling from the office to tell us anything.” The ex-worker continued, “We are broke, we are out of a job and we have bills coming up, mortgage, etc. and no-one hires around this time.”
The workers told Kaieteur News that they had reached out to the Labour Ministry for help but have not received any assistance. This media house had reported in July this year that the foreign mining company had upped the ante in firing locals in order to use expats to focus on underground mining. Kaieteur News had noted this after reading a circular that had been disseminated to local employees by the company of its plans to lay them off.
The circular was signed by the Troy Resources’ General Manager (GM) Colin Connors and a section of it read: “we have notified the Ministry of Labour that we will be laying off a significant portion of our workforce, but the final amount has not been finalised.”
Seeking to underscore that Troy is closing the mine, Connors used the occasion to disclose that “we are working to progress with the development of the SMARTS Underground project”.
Troy resources has since employed a foreign sub-contractor based in Canada, Barrack Gold, to conduct explorations for underground mining on its concession located at the Karouni Mine, in the Region Seven location. Its spokesperson, Baksh, had said, “In the interim the company will continue in the care and maintenance status and will continue to have a skeleton crew at the mine site inclusive of a fully staffed medical center”.