Dear Editor,
I am happy to read that our government has secured UNDP funding for a foreign consultancy on improving ICT access by hinterland citizens.
Less than two months later, worrying about the legality of the proposed Amerindian Village Council elections, I did some deeper reading of the relevant law. On July 17, 2015, in a privileged personal encounter, I handed the relevant Vice-President/Minister a package of 6 written documents outlining what I called RSVP, the Records Support for Villages Programme, which I had devised to address disabilities in Amerindian Village Councils to fulfil their legal responsibilities in record-keeping and transmission of official and other information. Included were an analysis of internet availability to all Amerindian villages and settlements, and ideas for facilitating training, sharing, publishing and collaborating in many areas to bring long-neglected peoples into the national life. To keep it short I left out my project proposals for village e-libraries and school IT clubs.
Getting no reply from the Vice-President, I emailed copies of those documents to the Minister of Communities, with the observation that many of the legal mandates as to record-keeping and communication might apply throughout the local government system.
Getting no response but a polite acknowledgement from that Minister, I then made bold to send the package to the then Minister of Governance, thinking such matters should come under his purview. But he too made no response, so I backed off again.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte
