The International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana (IDPADA-G) said that it has over $1.3M to help residents who were removed from an area at Mocha/Arcadia to make room for the laying of a multimillion-dollar thoroughfare.
The group said that so far, it has received a total of G$110,000 in cash donations from concerned persons locally. Donations from the diaspora are now at US$3,053.00 with US$2,050 donated by a Guyanese American who had launched a separate GoFundMe site and US$1003 raised from the IDPADA-G Facebook page and other diaspora donors.
Close to 30 families were removed from lands the government said were state reserves, branding the settlers as “squatters”. However, the main parliamentary opposition is adamant that the lands are ancestral. Several families have been relocated to brand-new homes and access to arable lands, while a handful – with support for the Opposition – remain resolute that they should be compensated hundreds of millions of dollars.
IDPADA-G said that it wrote the Minister of Housing and Water, Collin Croal seeking an engagement to resolve the standoff, but the senior government functionary has not replied.
The group, which attempted to host an event to highlight “the emergence of an apartheid state” last year, claims that it is being starved of government subvention. It said that all attempts to have a meeting with President Dr Irfaan Ali and the Culture Youth and Sports Minister, Charles Ramson Jr. have been futile.
The rights group said that despite their submission of financial reports and no evidence of swindling found, the government continues to withhold monies.
“The Government’s official focus has been financial accountability although we have provided all of our audited transactions/ documents from 2018 to 2021 based on our Parliamentary approved budget. It is worth reiterating that the audit conducted by the Ministry of Finance in 2021 found no basis for withholding the subvention.
While focusing on documents, the government has avoided any conversation with IDPADAG. Although since the last quarter of 2021, we requested a meeting with the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport and have since written the President and pursued a meeting with him three times in 2022,” the group stressed.
