With the National Toshaos Council conference beginning today, the opposition PPP yesterday made a 15-point pitch for the improvement of Indigenous communities and pilloried the government for violating the constitution.
In a lengthy statement that underlined the importance the political parties assign to the Amerindian vote, the PPP pledged restoration of a number of programmes it had begun before losing office in 2015.
If it was to win the upcoming general elections on March 2nd, the PPP said it would do the following:
- Uphold the principle of “‘Free Prior and Informed Consent’ in decision making by the government and state agencies with Amerindian communities on issues and policies of national concern and those which involve their communities;
- Immediately restart the Amerindian Land Titling programme in compliance with the 2006 Amerindian Act;
- Fully finance Community Development Plans thereby creating jobs and income;
- Increase Presidential Grants to fund other village activities;
- Hire 2000 Community Service Officers (CSO) and expand the CSO programme;
- Heighten agricultural support and infrastructure across the hinterland;
- Upgrade hinterland roads, airstrips and water supply;
- Restart the Hinterland Household Electrification Programme and the Hinterland ICT programme;
- Improve working conditions for education and health workers;
- Better education and health facilities and services ;
- Remove hardship taxes on hinterland communities especially those in border areas;
- Remove VAT on air tickets and freight;
- Ensure Amerindian and other hinterland residents benefit substantially from the proceeds of the oil and gas sector;
- Other measures that will benefit all Guyanese such as the restoration of the “cash care grant’ to all school children will also develop Amerindian and Hinterland communities;
- Improve ICT on coast and hinterland to provide quicker communication and integration of the hinterland regions.
The PPP took aim at the APNU+AFC government over the land titling programme.
It said that in 2018, Vice President and Minister of Indigenous Affairs Sydney Allicock admitted before the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources that no titles or extensions of lands to Amerindian communities had been issued by his government. Demarcation of titled lands is now at a standstill. This the PPP said is in spite of the availability of US$10.7M that the PPP/C administration left in the Amer-indian Land Titling Project in May 2015.
The government has since cleared titles for some indigenous communities.
The PPP charged that ‘Free Prior and Informed Consent’, a fundamental international principle has been repeatedly honoured in the breach. It added that one of the most glaring examples was the decision by the government to establish the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Lands.
It said that most recently at the official launch of the Amerindian Heritage Month, the caretaker Minister of Indigenous Affairs, stated that: “… it is also important that Indigenous Peoples understand that all Guyanese have a right to share in the distribution of our resources. We need to find a middle ground where we embrace this reality.”
The PPP said that this language harks back to a statement by Minister Keith Scott in the National Assembly that the Amerindians had too much land.
The PPP added that the new administrative requirement as announced by Allicock of the submission of a Village Improvement Plan (VIP) for any community applying for land or an extension, flies in the face of the Amerindian Act, and is meant to further stall any titles being granted.
The PPP stated that the Conference is taking place at a “crucial and defining period in the life of our nation” when constitutional rule has been breached and the caretaker government has defied the constitution and the June 18th 2019 ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice and its subsequent orders.
