THE Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs will be restructuring the implementation process of projects under the Amerindian Development Fund (ADF), to ensure that persons are sensitised about the projects, and are provided adequate training to ensure transparency and accountability.This was explained by Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs Sydney Allicock during an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA). He expressed dissatisfaction with the way the projects were being implemented.

“When this fund was made available, while it was a good initiative, the mechanism was not in place to allow full benefit out of the funds spent because onto now, we have not had anyone with a certificate to say they are trained. The training was a one or two-day training which did not gear persons enough of what the funding was about,” Minister Allicock explained.

During Phase l of the Community Development Plans (CDP), funded through the ADF, 27 communities were selected. However, 26 received disbursements to implement their respective CDPs.

Projects executed during this pilot stage included farming, agro-processing, aquaculture, poultry and cattle rearing, mining, village infrastructure including construction of village offices and multi-purpose buildings, village shop and museum, and transportation and tourism.

However, when the coalition government took office, it was observed that some of these ventures were not successful.

“Some of these ideas are useful, but because of the lack of proper management, the lack of accountability and transparency we ended up in those situations. We are talking to the new councils. We will look at these projects, examine them, fix what can be fixed and move forward. It is a lot of time and money spent and we can’t just give up on something without properly investigating,” Minister Allicock emphasised.

The ministry in collaboration the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is in the process of implementing Phase II of the ADF Project.

The ministry is reviewing community proposals, after which training will be conducted. Communities will also be sensitised about the project, what it entails and what is expected of them.

The project aims to strengthen entrepreneurial and institutional capacities of the village economy of Amerindian communities/villages, improve linkages with the private sector to further develop value chains and strengthen institutional frameworks to support local economies.