I am so proud to announce that drilling has commenced at our Lusso South concession site in the Republic of Guinea. I and the rest of the team here in Guinea, alongside the wider Seventy Ninth Group team, have been organising this drilling campaign for several months and have completed extensive development work, leveraging the wealth of resources and knowledge from the local communities.
The Seventy Ninth Group have always wanted to do this in a way that positively impacted the local communities and the wider country as a whole. Our mantra is, and always has been, to invest in the countries in which we operate, and this is something I have embraced.
In the lead-up to the drilling commencement, I spent weeks engaging with the locals on the ground, visiting nearby villages, medical facilities and community sites to better understand their needs, to determine how we can create positive value in the lead-up to the next phase of our exploration process. So far, the Seventy Ninth Group has committed 36 roles for local people, supported by myself and the team here at the Seventy Ninth Resources head office in Conakry, and in collaboration with local businesses and initiatives.
As a responsible employer, we aim to provide comprehensive health and safety training to ensure all workers are safeguarded on-site, provide access to state-of-the-art machinery and safety equipment, and provide the opportunity to develop transferable skills and a reliable employment opportunity.
A key part of my role is ensuring that all of this is carried out and in place before our drilling operations start, as well as organising and managing the day-to-day operations on site. Due to the scope of the project, I kept daily reports on everything we were doing, the work we were undertaking and the deliverables we needed to measure.
