Gov’t promises to end neglect of Amerindian communities

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai fiercely defended this year’s national budget, telling the National Assembly that all Amerindians across the regions stand to benefit from the slew of supportive measures it contains.

Contributing to the debate in the House of Representatives on Thursday, she said the budget breathes life into all Amerindian communities.

“Under the Amerindian Development Fund, we can expect a number of things that will remedy that neglect and remedy that marginalisation and remedy the fact that we are delivering in a period when, in the past five years, there was no delivery,” she said.

A total of $1.835 billion (one Guyana dollar = US$0.004) has been set aside under the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs for the Amerindian Development Fund.

Sukhai reminded that, for years under the previous administration, the school uniforms that Amerindians received from successive PPP/C governments was arbitrarily halted.

“For three years under the APNU/AFC, no school uniform was delivered to the hinterland students, none whatsoever. I was campaigning in Paramakatoi at the time when the aircraft landed and, if you see bags of uniform material coming for the first time, just about four days before elections; that is how they treated indigenous students. And you have leaders from the other side of this House speaking about the PPP/Civic Government don’t care for these Guyanese,” she said.

The Irfaan Ali-led government returned a school uniform grant as one of the first measures, after entering office in August 2020. In addition, the $4,000 for school uniforms that was given in 2021 has been increased to $5,000.

This is in addition to the increase in the ‘Because we Care’ cash grant, from $15,000 to $25,000.

The Ministry of Agriculture, in 2021, also spent significant sums in hinterland communities, to strengthen their capacity to grow more.

The Amerindian Affairs Ministry also complemented those efforts by investing millions of dollars to purchase and deliver 112 tractors and trailers to communities across the country; and, in 2022, the sum of $411 million has been budgeted to purchase 71 more tractors to improve village economies in the hinterland.