A partnership for National Unity (APNU) Member of Parliament for the Region Eight constituency Sydney Allicock, has reportedly lost his position as Toshao of the North Rupunnui community of Surama. Allicock, after the November 28 general and regional elections, was selected as an MP for APNU.
However, according to a report on the popular online news site, ‘iNews Guyana’, the villagers of Surama were “peeved” at Allicock’s “betrayal” when he voted in favour of the recent Gy$20.9B cuts to the 2012 national Budget, which affected a number of government programmes including three of which Amerindian communities were to benefit from.
Sources in Surama said the community lost confidence in Allicock representing their rights after he “colluded ” with the other opposition parliamentarians to “deprive” Amerindians of significant development opportunities.
The sources said that the community became upset after they realized that the budgetary cuts which Allicock voted in favour of has plunged, among other programmes, the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
The cuts are likely to impact the distribution of the 11,000 domestic solar panels to Amerindian communities, the micro-enterprise scheme for Amerindians, the Amerindian land titling and demarcation and the One Laptop Per family (OLPF) initiative which Amerindian communities had stand to benefit from.