What will become of the National Toshaos Conference?

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor,

The assigned Head of the Presidential Secretariat Mr Joseph Harmon said that as part of the APNU+AFC government’s 100-day work plan, they will be de-politicising the National Toshaos Conference for genuine-decision making.

But can Harmon say if this is a pretext for the APNU+AFC government to scale-down the size of the National Toshaos Conference, disallowing Toshaos (Amerindian Village Chiefs) to speak for their respective communities in the presence of the President, his Ministers and Government officials about  the abolishment of presidential grants to Amerindian communities, the abolishment of the Amerindian Development Fund (ADF), the abolishment of the Community Service Officer (CSO) programme, and the reduction of budgetary allocations for the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MOAA)?

The May 2015 elections have come and gone. The Amerindian communities are waiting on the resumption of the Amerindian Land Titling (ALT) project and implementation of the Community Development Projects (CDPs).

The Toshaos of Guyana are presently wondering what will become of their village elections which are scheduled for June 2015. Can Harmon quickly inform our Toshaos and Amerindian community leaders.

Further, the over 180 Amerindian communities in Guyana are extremely worried that their development programmes under the former PPP/C government will now be abolished under the APNU+AFC administration.

Can Harmon provide explanations to the concerns of Guyana’s indigenous people.

Peter Persaud

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