New Secretariat for National Toshaos Council to be opened soon

Indigenous village leaders will benefit from the new National Toshaos Council (NTC) secretariat at the Sophia Exhibition Centre as soon as next week.

The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, Ryan Toolsiram, last week disclosed that the construction of the building has moved along quite well but due to inclement weather the final works were stalled.

The construction work now stands at about 90 per cent complete with the yard work being done for a soon opening.

“At this point the building is completed. It consists of an administration section and a dome where the NTC will use to hold their meetings and so on.

“We were scheduled to do some casting but as you know we had tremendous rainfall. We are looking at next week for the project to be wrapped up,” Toolsiram said.

This building will greatly improve the accommodations that Toshaos need for their meetings and provide them with a place to stay when they have to travel from their communities to meet in the city.

“The upstairs of the administrative section of the building has four self-contained rooms. So when the Toshaos travel from afar to come to conduct business, they have a room that they can stay in before they go back,” Toolsiram stated.

The government allocated $100 million in the 2022 National Budget to relocate the secretariat from its Hadfield and Cross Streets, Georgetown location. The building was supposed to be constructed by March 2023.

According to previous reports, it was noted that the provision of this secretariat is a key part of the government’s support for indigenous people and their elected leaders. The goal is to have indigenous peoples recognised as key players in the mainstream development of the country.