President Bharrat Jagdeo hit the nail on the head recently when he said that one of the major hurdles in raising the income in the indigenous communities is the distance from the coast and the transportation logistics.

Our indigenous brothers and sisters have the capacity to produce large amounts of food, apart from their traditional art but because of the landlocked situation which face many of our indigenous communities, it is almost impossible for them to access markets for their produce and at the same time bring in goods they need. Because of these logistical problems the cost-of-living in these communities tend to be higher than that of the coastland.

Region eight in particular has a huge agricultural potential, and notably, many of the food items such as, potatoes and onions, which are imported, can be grown there in commercial quantities, but because they can access markets on the coastland only by air transport it is not economically feasible to grow such crops.

Against this backdrop the announcement by the President that some $2 billion dollars will be spent on the development of road access in the hinterland is most timely and welcomed; and could not have come at a better time than during the observances of Amerindian Heritage Month.

As the World Bank notes, roads are the backbone of a country’s infrastructure and the frame of a country’s economic development. They support growth in agriculture and industry, open corridors, port links and tourism areas, and connect each region to the rest of the country. Roads also furnish access to internal markets and social infrastructure such as schools and health centers.

“So upgrading the road network in Regions One, Ten and in the southern part of Nine, going beyond Lethem and connecting Region Eight to Region Nine could all be very instrumental in not only shipping things out but reducing the impact on people,” President Jagdeo posited.

The announcement too that there is a recognition of the need for some form of electricity supply in these communities is another step forward in the direction of improving the income and living conditions of the indigenous people.

The availability of electricity will go a far way in moving towards processing, rather being simply producers of raw materials.

“We recognise that the time has come for these villages to have some form of electricity,” he declared

He said the government has embarked on a pilot project and close to 1,000 small solar units have already been distributed and, within four years, every household, among the 10,000 Amerindian households, will have one.

However, in all of this the President made a very significant and pertinent observation that in many parts of the world, there is this view that indigenous people must become museum pieces and kept in “a historically intact state.”

“We can ensure that our indigenous people progress materially. They can dream big dreams for themselves and their children and yet, at the same time, we can create the conditions for the preservation of this wonderful culture,” he assured.

The essential point here is that, unlike what some are contending, indigenous people can improve their economic and material well being like every other people without disrupting or destroying their beautiful culture and traditions.

It must be noted that these wonderful aspirations for indigenous people have not sprung up spontaneously or sporadically but rather on the contrary it is a deepening and expansion of the vision of the late President Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who worked tirelessly among the Amerindians listening to their concerns and plights.

This vision led him to establishing, for the first time in Guyana, a Ministry of Amerindian Affairs to methodically work towards the upliftment of our Amerindian people who endured tremendous repression and suffering during colonialism and even the post colonial period.