Amerindian Heritage Month launched with grand splendour

Sep 02, 2009 News

…Jagdeo announces $2B to be spent on access roads in the hinterland

By Fareeza Haniff

President Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that his government intends to spend millions of dollars on improving hinterland communities.
During the official launching of Amerindian Heritage Month at the Sophia Exhibition Centre yesterday, the Head of State revealed that a $2 billion programme will be ‘rolled out’ within the next three years that will see several access roads being developed in hinterland areas.
This, he said, would eventually assist the villagers in improving their output, and will essentially improve the income of the villages.

A section of the gathering

According to President Jagdeo, the cost of living in most of the areas is really high when compared to the Coast and this is mainly due to the need to fly things into many parts of the interior.
With the construction of the access roads, the President said that the cost of living will eventually decrease.
“So upgrading the road network in Regions one, ten, and in the southern part of Region nine going beyond the Lethem Road and connecting Region eight to Region nine by road could all be very instrumental in not only shipping things out, but also reducing the impact on people,” President Jagdeo told the gathering which included, Members of Parliament, and opposition party members.
According to the President, the government has now also recognised that the time has come for the villages in the hinterland to have some electricity and in this regard a pilot programme has commenced which has seen a total of 1,000 small solar units distributed to households.
But according to the President, within the next four years, all 10,000 Amerindian households will have a solar unit.

These dancers were among the highlights at yesterday’s launching of Amerindian Heritage Month at the Umana Yana

The Head of State also revealed that the administration is working in collaboration with GT&T to expand its services to the hinterland in not only voice but data access at strategic points in the hinterland areas.
“We are going to work every single day to ensure that a child born in one of these areas has the same opportunity as a child born on the Coast… it’s not going to be easy, but it is something we are committed to.”
Meanwhile, as it relates to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), Jagdeo said that his government does not intend to impose any strategy on the Amerindian people that will alter their way of life.
“My government will never ever impose on you any development model or theory or idea that is alien to our culture…whatever model we try and whatever initiative we institute to improve people’s well being at the village level would have to be done carefully and with the consent of the people who live in these areas because we respect the right of our Amerindian people to have choices.”
Jagdeo reiterated the need to develop the village economy as he noted that the administration has failed to dramatically improve the incomes in these communities.
According to the President, the budgets for hinterland areas have increased phenomenally over the years, as is evident with the transformation of education and health care delivery in many communities.
However, a major hurdle being faced by the villages, Jagdeo said, is the distance from the coast, as the goods produced in the hinterland are similar to those produced on the Coast, and they are perishable in nature.
In this regard, he said that activities need to be devised, which will ensure food security and sustainability of income in the areas.
It was noted that there is a plan to divide the indigenous community into village economies so as to work with each community to find one or more activities that the state will fund.
“Over the next two years or so, you are going to see tens of millions of dollars spent in these communities based on what the people of the village think is sustainable and based on technical help that we will give them, hoping that through the technical guidance they may select a series of opportunities.”
Meanwhile, Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai in her remarks to the gathering reiterated the need to promote the training available for Amerindian children as she urged the village council to make it a permanent agenda item so that persons can be properly educated.
She also made it clear that her Ministry will aggressively deal with the issue of young girls being lured to ‘jobs’ that were promised to them, but when they arrive at the location, it is a completely different situation.
Amerindian Heritage Month is being observed under the theme, ‘Securing Our Livelihood while Sustaining Our Cultural Diversity.’