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…President, PM reject NTC claims of unfilled promises
…say issues raised are all work in progress
BOTH the President and Prime Minister have rejected claims by outgoing Chairman of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) Joel Fredericks that government had broken its promises to the first peoples, explaining that many of the issues raised are work in progress.
At the opening of the week-long12th Annual NTC Conference at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre on Monday, Fredericks gave a list of requests by the NTC which he said are yet to materialise. One, which the outgoing chair referred to as an unfilled promise, was for a plot of land which was promised by the government for the construction of a NTC Secretariat. However, President David Granger told reporters: “I don’t know of any promise that has been broken, they asked for a plot of land, I went there and I turned the sod myself and it is being processed.”
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“The Bena Hill Institute and the issuance of lands to the NTC to establish its Secretariat, this land is being processed with a lease being granted in the interim as the transport is to be handed over, ultimately, thereby giving the NTC land security,” Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, Sydney Allicock added.
“Things and time change, even climate changes, and there will be opportunities and instead of casting this gloom and doom situation, I would like to say to the incoming Toshaos and the NTC, that you have an opportunity for further discussion where land for your secretariat is concerned.”
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As he was departing the conference centre, President Granger addressed the media’s questions on the comments made by Fredericks, stating that in the past he had encouraged the establishment of an Indigenous Peoples Authority for the implementation of such plans but this was not regarded to by those in authority. “The NTC has certain responsibilities and the Government’s job is to help the NTC to fulfill those responsibilities. I’m not blaming anybody. I came here two years ago and proposed the establishment of an Indigenous Peoples Authority [because] the important thing is planning and implementation,” he said.
Among the other requests the NTC outgoing chairman said were unfulfilled, included the establishment of a Lands Commission in respect to Amerindian land rights; Constitutional Reform and the revision of the Amerindian Act (2006).
However, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo clarified that the issues highlighted by Fredericks are “works in progress” which ought not to be completed haphazardly, but meticulously for the long-term benefit of citizens.
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“I’m not aware of these broken promises. Those are matters that are works in progress. For example, we’re dealing with constitutional reform. The outgoing chairman mentioned constitutional reform but we know that constitutional reform is a process, it’s in the National Assembly, so what do you do? You jump the head of the National Assembly and do something in constitutional reform? The bill is there in a bi-partisan select committee of the house,” he said.
LAND TITLING
Meanwhile, on the matter of land titling, Nagamootoo said: “This is a matter that has been ongoing. Consultation has been taking place there are various levels of consultations taking place and there are, in fact, some titles that are already near perfection to be handed out. I think the chairman anticipated that,” Mr Nagamootoo said.
He said that soon there will be 15 titles to be handed out and there seems to suggest there may be a timing that was involved in that.”
The Prime Minister explained further that during a recent trip to Mexico he was impressed by the country’s database on its land utilization, which indicated the type of land, what is below and above it and aided in investments by clearly highlighting what soil is capable of producing.
He said that these strategies align with the Government’s aim of creating a land inventory for the ultimate benefit of indigenous communities and other citizens. “I think that one has to take things within a context, that it is not an attempt to deprive indigenous peoples of communal lands but it is part and parcel of a national effort to do a land inventory so that we can have better utilisation of that land resources,” he said.
“For the future, the President has said very clearly that this is not about short term, this is about long term, at a period when we were looking at the strategic and the beneficial use of other resources. So, I don’t see this as a question of making or breaking promises, I see this as a process, I see this as working in collaboration with various agencies and levels of government to produce a better life for our people.”
The opening ceremony of the NTC conference was attended by over 200 leaders of indigenous communities across the 10 Regions of Guyana, and the assemblage is set to continue in the week’s discussions on matters relating to the welfare of Guyana’s first people.
