NOT just the government but all major stakeholder organisations and agencies of Guyana should demonstrate active interest in efforts being made by representatives of this nation’s indigenous Amerindian population to avoid threatened social and economic problems as a direct consequence of related cuts made to the 2012 budget by the parliamentary opposition parties—APNU and the AFC.
This observation is made at a time when the organisations representing our Amerindian communities are in the process of making  arrangements for consultations across the hinterland region on the implications of the budget cuts for them, in particular expenditures related to the government’s high-profile Low Carbon Development Strategy  (LCDS).
President Donald Ramotar chose the opportunity of his meeting last Thursday with a delegation of members of the Indigenous People’s Commission (IPC), headed by chairman Doreen Jacobis, to reaffirm his administration’s commitment to prevent any serious dislocation in policies and programmes designed to improve the welfare of our Amerindian communities.
Both the National Amerindian Development Foundation  and the Indigenous People’s Commission indicated their concerns and plans for the coming regional consultations when they met with President Ramotar.
The historic funding partnership forged by the government with Norway, that’s fundamental to the success of the LCDS and Guyana’s firm commitment to coping with the phenomenon of climate change, is central to the financing of programmes in Amerindian communities of  the hinterland region.
During last month’s “Rio+20 Summit” in Brazil, President Ramotar had a meeting with Norway’s President Jens Stoltenberg who disclosed the encouraging news that Guyana would shortly receive a further US$40 million in support of its LCDS with US$60 million more being forwarded by year-end.
Central to Norway’s overall US$250 million performance-based aid to Guyana by 2015 is the avoidance of deforestation,a vital feature of the government’ s LCDS.
In contrast, on one hand, to shared international optimism in the Guyana/Norway partnership, and the worrying concerns, on the other hand, of our indigenous communities as a consequence of the related budget cuts, the two opposition parliamentary parties seem determined to pursue shortsighted and discriminatory politics under the guise of their concept of fiscal management.
One parliamentarian at the core of this myopic approach is APNU’s shadow Finance Minister, Carl Greenidge, a politician with a poor track record as former Finance Minister in a PNCR administration, who is currently competing with Opposition Leader David Granger for leadership of the PNCR at that party’s coming congress.
The business and religious communities should consider how best to be supportive, along with other stakeholders, of the Amerindian communities in combating the negative consequences of the APNU/AFC cuts to the 2012 national budget.