President Bharrat Jagdeo says his administration will not stand idly by and allow any organisation to stymie the development of Guyana and its people. He was making reference to the delayed release of the forest funds Guyana has qualified for through its Low Carbon Development Strategy.
The president was addressing scores gathered at the Guyana International Conference Centre at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara for the official opening of the fifth annual National Toshaos Council meeting. “We haven’t received the money from Norway; it was paid by Norway in an account, so it’s in an account for Guyana, but by the time the money gets from that account to us here, we have to overcome a number of things,” Jagdeo told the indigenous leaders.
At the last NTC meeting, Jagdeo had revealed that it was his administration’s intention to use US$8 million of the then US$30 million fund to provide solar panels for homes in hinterland areas, advance the land demarcation process, and create an Amerindian Development Fund.
Today, government is forced to use some US$3 million from the treasury to finance the solar panel distribution project, for which a Danish company has won the bid, Jagdeo informed.
He added that this project will also benefit non-Amerindian, remote and riverine areas without electricity.
President Bharrat Jagdeo delivers the keynote address at the opening of the fifth Annual National Toshaos Council Meeting in Georgetown, Guyana
The president’s audience included members of the diplomatic corps, and in addressing them, he said “If we can’t (access the funds), we will have to use our own money. I’m not waiting on any international organisation to slow down development in this country. We will use it because it’s an important part of what we stand for. A lot of you have requested demarcation; we don’t have enough money in the budget, because it’s very costly to do the demarcation on the ground. All they have to do is to pay the surveyors to do the demarcations … we already have a process where(by) many communities were demarcated in the past. It’s nothing, and yet they are saying ‘we have to come and assess the entire process’,” the seemingly frustrated head of state pointed out. Jagdeo has by now become well known for his open criticisms of certain international organizations; and he opined that the World Bank and some UN organisations were “bureaucracies dedicated to creating jobs for people from northern countries.”
“If I were dealing with the World Bank and some of the other organisations, including some UN organisations, I’d cut the staff by half and get twice as much work out of them,” a perturbed Jagdeo added.
He acknowledged that there are ‘excellent’ people working at these institutions, but criticised them coming to the country and returning home to write reports.
“That doesn’t transform people’s lives. It doesn’t fix the issue of demarcation of lands,” he declared.
Meanwhile, President Jagdeo pointed to what he termed a neglect of responsibility on the issue of climate change by the very countries that preach a practise of good policies to Guyana.
“The EU and maybe Korea and some other countries in the world are still holding strong, but outside of that, the others have dropped the fight against climate change and the planet is moving towards catastrophe,” he stated.
“The same people who lecture us on good policies are unprepared to take good policies themselves. If we don’t take those policies, we threaten the world.” The GRIF is the mechanism whereby funds for forest climate services will be directed from Norway to Guyana, as provided for in the agreement signed by the two countries. It will support implementation of priority LCDS investments from 2010 to 2015, unless it is superseded by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or any other international mechanism.
Another major project to be implemented under the GRIF is the government investment of US$40 million in the Amaila Falls Hydro-power Project. The GRIF would also be the fund’s management vehicle through which payments provided to Guyana for forest climate services would generate further income, pending the use of liquid assets for specific LCDS investments.
Guyana and Norway have asked the World Bank to act as a trustee of the GRIF, utilising the bank’s treasury function to generate further investment income for the LCDS. The Guyana/Norway deal is valued at up to US$250 million by 2015 for forest climate services. So far, some US$70 million has been deposited into the fund.
