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$3.4B allocated for Amerindian grants
Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs last week announced that in 2023 it disbursed $947.6 million in presidential grants to Indigenous villages, and so to continue the programme this year, the government has allocated $3.4 billion towards this.
This was announced by Senior Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh who on Monday at the National Assembly presented this year’s budget. The national budget for the year is $1.146 Trillion. The Senior Minister elaborated that in pursuit of sustainable village economies in all villages, Presidential Grants continue to be distributed to each Amerindian community, and support provided for various economic, eco-tourism, agricultural and infrastructural initiatives. Hence $3.4 billion have been budgeted for these purposes.
The minister went onto state that the Government remains unwavering in their commitment to Amerindians through targeted developmental programmes, aimed at strengthening land tenure, promoting the development of a sustainable village economy in each village, maintaining and upgrading infrastructure, and enhancing the social welfare, and so the government has set aside $9 billion for Amerindian development programmes.
He shared that having completed the National Toshoas Council (NTC) Secretariat Building which now provides the Council a suitable venue to convene and discuss key matters, an amount of $100 million is provided in 2024 to support the hosting of the NTC conference. “We continue to promote security of land tenure through the land titling programme, on which $111 million was spent in 2023, and for which $800 million is budgeted in 2024,” he presented.
Speaking of other investment for the Amerindian people, Minister Singh announced that in 2024, a sum of $1.2 billion would see over 2,600 persons trained through the Community Service Officers Programme.
He mentioned that the provision of educational opportunities and, in particular, scholarships for hinterland students to study at coastal institutions, they have made a provision of $105 million to support 804 students under the Hinterland Scholarship Programme, this year.
Apart from that, this year some $147 million has been set aside for the hosting of Amerindian Heritage celebrations. Noting that the $9 billion allocation would include the carbon credit sales, Minister Singh disclosed that in 2024, a further amount of $2.7 billion is expected to be transferred from carbon credit to Amerindian villages.
“Mr. Speaker, additionally, under our LCDS, 15 percent of the proceeds of the sale of our carbon credits is earmarked for Amerindian villages and, in particular, to finance Village Sustainability Plans developed by the villages. In 2023, support was provided for each village to develop a VSP and to open its own bank account, and amounts totalling $4.7 billion representing 15 percent of the carbon credit sales receipts to date was transferred to those accounts,” he had explained on Monday.
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