NTC conference set for July month-end – New executives to be elected

DPI Guyana, Saturday, May 19, 2018

The twelfth National Toshaos Council (NTC) conference will be held in July. This was announced by Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Sydney Allicock on Thursday last. The NTC conference is an annual five-day event which allows Indigenous leaders to hold discussions with members of the government on issues affecting their respective communities.

This year, a new Executive Committee of the NTC will be elected. The process is usually conducted by the Guyana Elections Commissions (GECOM) for transparency. The electoral process will see the casting of ballots in every administrative region, since this allows for the selection of the executives, based on a majority vote. From the twenty executives, a Chairman, Secretary and a Treasurer will be elected.

The political structures of indigenous communities are linked to the local government system and village chiefs and their councillors, who are elected to serve for three years.

Prior to the holding of the NTC Conference, some 215 communities will hold village elections where new Toshaos and councillors are to be elected to serve their respective communities. These newly elected village leaders will also represent their communities at the upcoming conference.

“We are looking at a programme that is going to see the new executive coming in, but the old executive is going to transition slowly…three days into the activities, they will have the nomination for the new executive and then they (new executives) flow into their new office,” Minister Allicock explained.

He said that the idea is to give the sitting executives a proper “send-off”, in recognition of their hard work and contributions over the past three years.

By Synieka Thorne
Image by Derrick Bridgemohan