Can the Minister of Amerindian Affairs explain why our government believes that the development of the Amerindian people must depend on the goodwill of a foreign government? Are we not Guyanese and entitled to a fair share of the money earned by our country?
During the debate of the 2012 National Budget, my AFC colleague MP from Region Eight, the Honourable Eula Marcello stated quite clearly that as Amerindians we will rue the day when Amerindian development rests on the whims and fancy of a foreign country and government. Amerindians are Guyana’s first people, a significant percentage of foreign exchange earned by this country comes from gold, diamond and forestry, this is the wealth of Amerindian lands and our heritage yet we are being told our development must come from handouts from foreign governments.
When we listen to the minister and her colleagues in government, we get thedistinct impression that the money earned through the export of gold, diamond, timber and other forest products and money earned in the form of taxes is not meant to be shared with the Amerindian people of this country. The things they are saying make us believe that Amerindians have no right in Guyana.
After the opposition voted to remove $18.4 billion from the 2012 budget, a number of ministers in the government started to lament that Amerindian development was being sacrificed and Amerindians would suffer because of the budget cuts. This $18.4 billion is money from the Government of Norway and while Norway has lodged the money with the World Bank we do not know when the government will meet the criteria to access this money but we hope that they do so soon.
For now, let us look at the $33 billion NICIL reported that it had in 2003. As we would say, that is $33 billion in the bank!
What prevented the Government from taking $18.4 billion out of the $33 billion to do the things listed for Amerindian development? The CEO says the company does not need approval from the Parliament on when to take out money from the NICIL fund and how to spend it, it has been doing so for years.
Actually, the government can take $18.4 billion for Amerindian development and still have a balance of $14.6 billion for development of other groups including 70 per cent of the population at Linden, Region Ten who are out of jobs and the thousands more all across Guyana who desperately need jobs.
If they were indeed the caring government they profess themselves to be and so concerned about the Amerindian people, they would have taken the money from NICIL account to do the things they claim they want to do to improve the lives of the Amerindian people since back in 2003. The truth of the matter is that out of the $33 billion they had back in 2003, NICIL says it now has only $700 million. Where did $32.3 billion go? How was it spent? No one seems to want to tell the people of Guyana what happened to their monies.
Right now the Amerindians are being told that the opposition cut the budget for the LCDS so they will suffer. They cannot get titles to their land; their lands can no longer be demarcated; they cannot get solar panels or laptops.
The Amerindians are quite fed up of hearing the ministers and other members of the PPP telling them such things. They want to hear about opportunities for earning money so that they can provide adequately for their families; they want to hear about opportunities that will allow their children to become doctors, lawyers, writers, geologists, architects, and the list goes on; they want sustainable development for their villages.
Students are graduating from the Hinterland high schools with excellent grades in CXC and should be given scholarships to be trained as doctors, especially, and be further supported to specialise since we are very short of specialists health personnel in the hinterland. First time moms residing in the in the Moruca Sub- region, for instance, have to travel as far as Suddie Hospital in Region 2 to deliver their first born because there is no gynaecologist in that sub-region.
So much can be done to utilise our young hinterland human resources, but, instead, they have to return home to their villages and do very little but help their parents in the farm if there are no vacancies for teachers. Nothing is wrong with helping their parents in the farm but there is no market for their produce either.
Mind you, the opposition did not cut a single cent from the budget of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs.
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