says priority areas include delivery of 30, 000 solar units, upgraded infrastructure, improved education delivery, high-speed internet

WHILE assuring the Indigenous community that the government plans to address all of their needs, President Dr. Irfaan Ali on Friday announced that billions of dollars will be allocated to them in the 2024 and 2025 budget cycles.

The Head of State made this revelation at the closing of the National Toshaos Conference held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara where he disclosed that for the first time, the Chairman of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) Derrick John will meet with Minister of Finance during the budget consultation process.

“…the Toshaos Council will sit with the Minister of Finance in consultation …because we believe strongly in your voice. We believe strongly in your ideas but more importantly, we respect your voice, and we respect your ideas. As you’re aware, we operate in budget cycles, and we have to plan carefully within those cycles to understand and to reflect your priorities and your needs,” Dr. Ali told the gathering of over 200 toshaos.

He noted that there are several issues that the government will work to address swiftly before taking requests from communities.

“There are a few things that we must commit to fix and fix rapidly, and there are some things before I get into your requests that I want to assure you of,” he said.

According to him, these include the delivery of 30,000 household solar units. This distribution is expected to begin shortly and will see a government minister assigned to specific communities to hand over the units which are part of the first phase.

President Ali further revealed that an additional $16 billion will be invested this year to upgrade infrastructure in hinterland communities. Out of that sum, $6 billion will be spent on community roads.

Aside from infrastructure, the government will also embark on an aggressive programme to improve the delivery of education in hinterland communities. This programme will see improvements in teachers’ living quarters and hostels and the construction of new schools.

While this is being done, President Ali disclosed that officials will also address the slow Wi-Fi delivery in hinterland communities.

“So, we are going to work with you on a programme for the remainder of this year and next year where we’ll accelerate our investment. We will look at newer technologies, faster technology,” he added.

Over the next three years, the government will also make massive investments to improve health care in the hinterland regions, building new hospitals, and new health centres and expanding services such as telemedicine.

In addition to the aforementioned, President Ali assured the indigenous community that investments will also be made in human resources.

“In the next three years including the remainder of this year, you will see the most intense investment in health care.”

“I am making it clear now to you, very, very clear, that every single young person from your community or not so young, with the basic qualifications to enter the nursing programme, send us the names, the qualifications and we are going to enroll you and pay for your training and development to become nurses,” he asserted.

Investments will also be made in agriculture and tourism. Training in these areas will be done to ensure that Indigenous youths can benefit from the ongoing developments such as the establishment of several new hotels across the country.

Indigenous leaders from across the country attended this year’s conference.

The forum offered them the opportunity to meet and interact with government officials and to make critical decisions regarding the livelihoods of their people and development of their communities.