CHAIRMAN of the National Toshaos Council (NTC), Joel Fredericks, has voiced dissatisfaction over the $16M budgetary allocation for the Council in the 2018 National Budget.

Speaking at a press conference Friday at the Regency Hotel, Fredericks said the Council operates on a subvention from the government and despite lobbying for an increase from the $16M allocated for 2017, the Council was again allocated $16M in the budget.
NTC Vice-Chairman Lenox Shuman told reporters that when the Council had presented its initial budget proposal to the Finance Ministry, it amounted to some $88M, but the Council subsequently reduced the sum to a final amount of $37M after engagements with the ministry.

The vice-chairman claimed that the Council was informed that the amount was still too high and that the furthest acceptable increase to the 2017 allocation would be 10 per cent (or $1.6M).
However, the amount remained at $16M.
“At minimum, what we would have agreed on [is] $36M to $38M a year,” Shuman said.
Defending the sum requested, he highlighted that some $4M is required to facilitate one of the four quarterly meetings for Council executives, pointing out that the quarterly meetings alone would consume the total budgetary allocation.

In keeping with the NTC’s mandate for good governance, he explained that this cannot be achieved from Georgetown, but rather through outreaches to the far-flung indigenous communities.
And the Council is also mandated to provide for the preservation and use of indigenous languages and developing strategies for sustainable use of their lands and resources.
While detailing other expenses the Council would incur, he questioned: “How do we do that if we’re not funded appropriately?”

On the plus side, Fredericks highlighted that the NTC for the first time has its own secretariat located at 239 Quamina Street, Georgetown.
He, however, posited that the acquisition of the secretariat should have also necessitated greater budgetary consideration, since the Council would now be operating independently there.

Another point of dissatisfaction for the NTC is the lack of alacrity in dealing with the revision of the 2006 Amerindian Act, under which the NTC is constituted.
Shuman postulated that this is a “very poor” piece of legislation that the indigenous community have been calling for its review for many years, since it infringes on the rights of indigenous peoples as stated in Article 149G of the constitution.
A sum of $1B is needed for revision of the act, but only $10M was allocated.

Seeking to push forward with the revision of this act, Shuman related that engagements were held with other indigenous organisations over the past three days in Georgetown.
Here, a decision for the establishment of a Steering Committee to guide revision of the act was endorsed and the participants at the meeting agreed on the composition of the Steering Committee, the terms of reference for the Steering Committee and the criteria for persons to be selected to the Steering Committee, among other features.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between the Council and the Amerindian People’s Association (APA) to work together to foster development of the indigenous peoples.
Despite his disappointment, Shuman said he still has hope.

“What we‘re hoping for is since the budget hasn’t been finalised as yet, only presented at Parliament [and] hasn’t been passed as yet, we’re hopeful that the government would take some of these issues on board and see how they can adjust the budget to see how they can accommodate maybe an earlier subvention for the NTC and maybe something to support the Amerindian Act.”