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Request for urgent announcement by Indigenous Affairs Ministry

Nov 03, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Auditor general report for the year 2014 states that over 100 million dollars were unaccounted for by the former Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (KN.2015,10.29,) of which 41 million were allocated to eleven village councils to execute community projects.

The report went on to say that the Ministry made requests to those village councils for reports on the projects but never received any.
It was reported in the print media sometime back that in giving the reason for not carrying out audits in all Indigenous villages before the recently held village elections, the Senior Minister/Vice-President of the Ministry, Mr Sydney Allicok stated that it was not necessary to carry out audits in all villages because audits carried out in eighteen villages showed that there was unaccountability in all cases and he assumed all the other villages were the same.
In a recent article appearing in another newspaper, Ms Jude DaSilva, programmer coordinator, Ministry of Indigenous Affairs stated that the resumption of the presidential grant to Indigenous villages which was withheld for 2015 will take place in 2016. If audits were carried out it would reveal that except for empty buildings that once housed community shops and broken equipment there is nothing to show in most villages in Region 9 for the expenditure of presidential grants over the years. Minibuses and other forms of transportation now used were handed out to villages by the previous government. In my opinion this grant like the now defunct community support officers program was introduced by the former government to influence voters and was used effectively in the last general elections.
Taking into consideration the Auditor General report and the acknowledgement by Mr. Allicok of widespread unaccountability in the village council system, it would be appropriate for the Ministry to enlighten the Indigenous people and tax payers of the justification for the resumption of the grant and the amount allocated to villages. We would also like to know what mechanism was put in place to address unaccountability in village councils. Since we are now paying for quality Ministers and Vice-Presidents I would expect a public announcement by the Ministry in a timely manner.
Patrick Fitzpatrick

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