WHILE the opposition has found fault with the handing over of some $34M in Presidential and Capital Grants to Toshaos at the 13th annual National Toshaos’ Council (NTC) Conference on Wednesday, Member of Parliament, Mervyn Williams, has assured that there is no ulterior political motive involved.

The cheques, which were presented to 25 village leaders by Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Sydney Allicock and Minister within the Ministry, Valerie Garrido-Lowe, will go towards green sustainable community projects. The Presidential Grants programme is aimed at creating self-sufficiency within the hinterland villages and communities and, over $200M will be invested into 215 villages and communities under the programme for 2019.

Some of the villages that did not receive their grants from the ministers in their home town received same on Wednesday. The opposition seeks now to paint the handing over of the grants at the conference as “politically motivated”.

“It’s not a case where government deliberately stayed its hand in handing over those grants. Many villages have already received their grants and the grants that were handed out yesterday or the day before are grants that were not handed over earlier in the year, and it’s for the small component of the total package. Some of the villages are extremely remote and if you go in to those villages and you hand over those cheques to them they will still have to travel to the city to negotiate those cheques with the banks,” Williams explained.

“So, we have capitalised on the presence of the leaders in the city to hand over the cheques so that they can use the banking systems at no expense to the village, so that when they get back home they have a 100 per cent of the grants available for the developmental project that they had in mind.”

Over the past months, millions-of-dollars in grants have been handed over to villages to support community projects.

The Moruca sub-District, Region received close to $17M in grants for villages in Santa Rosa; Kopinang and Bamboo Creek in Potaro-Siparuni, Region Eight; and Wakapau, Kabakaburi, St. Monica and Mainstay/Whyaka in the Pomeroon-Supenaam, Region Two received presidential grants totalling over $8M, while Patarinau, Region Nine, and its satellite, Baitoon and Katuur also received $3M.

Questioned whether receiving these cheques in the third quarter of year would hinder the intended developmental projects in the regions, Williams disagreed. “No, it will not place any burden on the villages. In fact, some villages have been saving their grants from one year to the next to do projects that cannot be totally funded by one grant,” he said.

Referencing in the North Rupununi, he said that the community has embarked on an eco-tourism venture which was made possible through saving three years’ worth in grants.