By EDDIE OSIFELO
ONE of the employees of Win Win Investment Company, Jeremy Rex has defended wild allegations made against him by a landowner of Turarana, Joel Jackson.
This after Jackson claimed Rex has benefited a lot from the mining company through owning a vehicle and receiving cash.
However, Rex said he does not own any vehicle as it belongs to the company.
He said it is part of his entitlement as an employee to use the vehicle.
“If I got terminated from the company, the vehicle will get the vehicle back,” he said.
Jackson also claimed that Rex is not living on Turarana in order to be aware of the meeting between chiefs and tribal leaders on 5th June 2021.
He said Rex is living with his family at Chuchupuna which is some 200-300 meters from Turarana village.
However, Rex said he lives on Turarana village and was not aware of any meeting.
He said according to the protocol and business structures set up for the alluvial mining operation, Chairman Michael Berekeke of Giluagano Landowners Association (GLA) and Chairman Celestino Seri of Koehoto Landowners Association (KLA) would normally inform the company of any meetings.
Rex said this is so that the company can also support boths Associations to hold the meetings with the people.
He said in this case, the meeting was done outside the existing structure of the company and the two Associations.
Win Win has extracted alluvial deposits on the stream beds of both tenements to get the minerals, especially gold.
The company started operations on Mamasa in October 2019, however the company discovered the tenement had low alluvial deposits on its stream beds.
Win Win is now operating on Turarana which is believed to have high alluvial deposits.
The company has started exporting alluvial gold to Hong Kong in January this year after it registered the company in 2016.
The company’s Mamasa-Turarana operations on Central Guadalcanal were disrupted by the 2020 Chinese New Year and the closure of borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its operation had resumed around September 2020 until the armed robbery last December.
