–Minister Sukhai says

CHALLENGED with a backlog, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs is working to distribute all land titles and demarcations by 2024, subject minister Pauline Sukhai has said.

Minister Sukhai, on the sidelines of an event on Friday told the Guyana Chronicle that the government had envisaged that some 36 land titles and 68 demarcations would have been remaining when they assumed office in 2020. However, that was not the case.

“When we left office, our programme envisaged that we would have about 36 or so titles to be addressed, and 68 demarcations,” she said, adding: “We came back, and we arrived at almost zero level, where we have to pick up from where we left off.”

The government, she said, is working to clear the backlog, and have all titles and demarcations completed within the next two-and-a-half years.

“We are working on it to ensure that we complete it in the next two-and-a-half years from now. At the end of 2024, we expect that all the demarcations should be completed, and the titling, mainly extensions to village,” she told this publication.

During this period, the ministry will be able to conduct investigations and consultations to deliver titles, she added.

Further, she said: “It’s a work in progress. We were able to negotiate the extension for two years, so, over that two years, we have quite a lot to do. It’s like picking up from 2015, and trying to complete what we should have done in 2017; so we are way back.”

In July of this year, two absolute grants and five certificates of title were handed over to the leaders of several Amerindian villages.

In 2013, the PPP/C government signed off on the implementation of the $2.2 billion (US$11M) Amerindian Land Titling and Demarcation project, which was later concluded in 2016.

The functioning unit of the project was disbanded by the previous administration, but was later restored when the President Irfaan Ali-led government made good on its promise to resuscitate the project, with a proposed 2021 budgetary allocation of $630 million.

An additional $561.6 million was allocated in Budget 2022 to achieve a target of 20 certificates of title.

The ALT project has three primary goals: Completion of land-title issues and demarcation process for all Indigenous villages that submitted requests; increased use of existing and alternative mechanisms to resolve land-titling disputes; and a communication strategy, including a handbook describing the process of titling, demarcation, and socio-economic impact of secured land tenure.