…warns institutions against further holdups, pays tribute to late Minister
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said that Government is changing the philosophy that people have of peoples of Amerindian descent, and efforts now go beyond just spending money to improve their lives, as discussions on further development commence at this year’s National Toshaos Council meeting.
President Jagdeo made this comment at the opening of the meeting yesterday at the Guyana International Conference Centre. The meeting will last until Friday and is being held under the theme ‘Advancing Development in a Low Carbon Environment’. The meeting is facilitated by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and funded by the Government of Guyana.
The President said that while most of the members of his Cabinet will be at the forum, he will spend the entire day on Wednesday and Thursday interacting with members of the Council and hearing the response of his ministers on issues that affect the lives of indigenous peoples.
He lauded the Amerindians for travelling long distances to come to the meeting and said that this is truly indicative of the commitment of the people, and the Government of Guyana appreciates the effort of their being here.
The President said the meeting is a follow-up of two years of similar meetings that took place. He noted that the Toshaos Meeting is taking place on a very sad note, with the passing of Minister in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Desrey Fox, since the body last met in July 2009. He described her as an incredible woman and a valued member of the Cabinet. “[She was] an academic, who was one of the few anthropologists that this country has…a very proud Amerindian woman who believed in the culture and the cultural renaissance of the Amerindian people. She played such a huge role in the Cabinet…we lost her drive , her passion and her commitment to changing the lives of indigenous peoples,” he said.
The President recalled the many times he spoke with her and noted the commitment that resonated from her, even before she took up the post as a Minister. “We are really saddened that we lost her. We are now looking at [doing something] to ensure that she is never forgotten,” he said.
He said that the meeting has become part of customary PPP/C policy. “We want to meet with you every year to address your concerns, but its more than just giving you the opportunity to meet with the Head of State and discuss your day to day concerns, as unique as this is,” he said. “It goes beyond that. What we are trying to do in this country is to change the whole philosophy…the mentality of the entire country in relation to indigenous peoples, their culture, their contribution, which is enormous, to the society and the place that they hold in national building and national ethos,” he said.
He said the advancement of the Amerindian peoples has been the result of their hard work and the Government of Guyana’s strong commitment. He said that while difficulty of geography in getting to where many of the Amerindian communities are can be acknowledged, this must no longer be used as an excuse to deny access to life’s opportunities to these communities.
Turning to land, he said there is a process by law which stipulates that all land claims must be dealt with. He said the Government today is obligated and no longer will it be decided upon based on the discretion of anyone. He said that the only problem has been the money to perform the land demarcation.
He said because of climate change funds that the country is receiving and could receive in the future, there is an opportunity to leapfrog the current rate of development in Amerindian communities.
He told the gathering of the receipt of US$30 million plus that has been deposited in a World Bank account through the MOU that Guyana signed with the Kingdom of Norway. He noted that although he has not asked a single Amerindian village to opt in to the Low Carbon Development Strategy, a sum of US$8 million of the money will go towards Amerindians. “If they opt in, that will be additional, but they are not required to,” he said. He added that US$4 million will be for the demarcation of Amerindian lands.
“Many of you have been waiting a while now for your titles and we need to now complete the demarcation exercise. The problem has been two-fold. We don’t have enough surveyors and it is very costly. It could cost as much as $40 million for each community, so we hope that the $800 million (US$4 million) would allow us to accelerate the process of demarcation. We [will] do this through a public tender and we will be able to complete the transaction with those communities that have been waiting for a while,” he said.
The President said a similar amount of money will be used for providing households in the Amerindian communities with solar panels. “Every Amerindian house will have a solar panel,” he stressed, to loud applause.
At the meeting of the Toshaos, all villages will present plans of action with a view to utilising funds garnered from the Amerindian Development Fund, into which the US$8 million is going. “So we really have $1.6 billion coming out of the LCDS to spend on the Amerindian communities and we are going to be leaving here with a plan to do this,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the World Bank and the IDB come to the meeting this week so that they could be a part of the process. “They slow things up tremendously…we have been negotiating a year with the World Bank…it is only a couple of weeks ago that we got the money transferred…we should have had the money since January because we fulfilled the requirements,” he said.
“I want them (the World Bank) to sit here and I want you the Toshaos to tell them not to do that. It is our money. We earned it. They should be facilitators, not dictating how we spend the money. You should make that determination by selecting the projects,” he said.