Elections for a new Executive Body of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) will be held before the end of April this year, according to Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai.
She told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that while there is no confirmation of a national conference there will be an election of the council members.
She explained that there is no limitation on how the members are elected, according to the Amerindian Act of 2006.
“Knowing how every district elects their own representative to sit as an executive member, we may be able to do a full house. If not, we will do it the way we have begun last year and that is through the Regional Toshaos Meeting so that we will be able to resolve the matter of not having a fully elected National Toshaos Council,” she said.
The Council is a semi-autonomous body comprising all Toshaos in Guyana. The 20-member executive committee includes a chairman, vice chair, secretary and treasurer.
That Executive Body is installed every three years during the annual NTC Conference, after the regions elect their members to serve on the Council.
The last NTC annual conference was held in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic has hampered the hosting of the conference, where Toshaos and other village leaders gather to elect representatives and address issues affecting their respective communities.
Last month, Sukhai announced that there will be no National Toshaos Council (NTC) conference in 2022. No budgetary allocations have been made for the annual meet, as some Amerindian leaders continue to flout the gazetted COVID-19 guidelines and refuse to be vaccinated.
Last September, three representatives were elected in a Regional Toshaos Meeting in Region Nine. However, the remaining members have not yet been elected. [Extracted and Modified from DPI]
