Permanent Secretary denies threatening Amerindians; listen to recording

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 20:59 by GxMedia

Amerindian Affairs Minister Pauline Sukhai, joining the protestors outside of the Parliament building.

The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs has denied threatening Amerindians that they would not be allowed to the Permanent Secretary’s office if they continued to support a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-funded Community Development Project (CDP) Scheme.

Permanent Secretary, Nigel Dharamlall had also warned the Amerindians at a meeting just prior to their protest against the opposition budget reductions of a cut in stipends if they continued to support the project. 

“The Office of the Permanent Secretary wishes to state, categorically, that the article attributing threatening statements by the Permanent Secretary to village leaders is wholly misrepresenting and taken  out-of-context by Demerara Waves.”

In the interest of clarity, Demerara Waves Online News now posts a podcast of Permanent Secretary, Nigel Dharamlall’s remarks in which he made the statements that were quoted in an earlier article. You can also listen to remarks by Amerindian Affairs Minister, Pauline Sukhai by clicking the play button. 

{mp3remote}http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/176652096/podcast/news/amerindiansmeeting.mp3{/mp3remote}

The Permanent Secretary, in conversation with those present at the gathering, implored that the Community Development Plans as designed and executed by the Amerindian villages are implemented by the Government through the MOAA/UNDP. He was further clarifying that the CDPs are not a UNDP project per se and so villagers should not refer to it as such. Moreover, he emphasized that some villagers continue to wrongly describe the CDPs by attributing the funding to UNDP when in fact they should know better since their villages are the ones that conceived the projects and the funding is sourced from the Government.

In this regard, it is hoped that Demerara Waves, now being apprised of the context of the discussion, would withdraw the malicious article which seeks to bring the Ministry into disrepute