Dear Sir/Madam,

Amerindians of Guyana, our first peoples, and their communities have been major beneficiaries of the many transformational projects executed by successive PPP/C administrations throughout the country.

Through the aegis of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, dozens of projects costing billions, increasing incrementally with each succeeding budget, have been executed since the PPP/C took office in 1992 and are continuing to be executed for the qualitative improvement of Amerindians and their communities under the current Irfaan Ali-led Government. These are the hinterland development projects programmed to make Amerindian communities self-sufficient, and finally integrating these well-deserving people into the mainstream of national life.

Amerindians and their communities have come a long way from those years of decades of criminal neglect, especially during the regime of the former People’s National Congress. The improved lives that are currently the daily experience of Amerindians and their hinterland communities are a direct result of a genuine policy on the part of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government to correct the historical wrongs that our Amerindian brethren had suffered for so long.

One of the successes of the hinterland development programmes has been its electrification initiative, beginning in 2005, from which an initial 11,000 solar panels were distributed to over 135 communities, in Regions One, Seven, Eight, Nine and 10 before the coalition government truncated the programme in 2015.

But Amerindian socio-economic development is a continuous process under every PPP/C Government; therefore, it should be of no surprise when the government recently restarted distribution of solar panels to augment those already provided to hinterland communities and riverine areas that are “off-grid.”

Unsurprisingly, the political opposition, the “Cummingsburg Two,” had levelled the accusation that these interventions were “vote-buying.”
But successive PPP/C Governments’ record on hinterland development is best manifested in the much-improved lives and changes of Amerindians and their communities under their watch.

Yours sincerely,
Attiya Baksh