President promises to deliver more development across indigenous communities

The 2025 National Toshaos Conference opened this morning with President Irfaan Ali, highlighting his Government’s development in many of the indigenous communities across the country.

The President told indigenous leaders that there has been transformation in Health and Education, and more investment is earmarked for the indigenous communities this year.

The President, who delivered the feature address at the opening of the conference, said the Government’s support for Indigenous communities has not been seasonal or opportunistic but comes as a result of direct consultation with Indigenous communities and leaders.

“We are going to complete the new Morouca regional hospital and expand the services of Mabaruma regional hospital, we will also establish an allied healthcare training complex at region 1, and will also be upgrading many of the health clinics as polly clinics, the expansion of lab services in many villages across the regions,” The President promised.

The President also promised that with the work being done in Region One and its health care system, malaria should be fully eliminated in the Region in the next five years.

On education, the President noted that there are now 2,435 trained teachers from hinterland villages, majority of whom are from regions 1,7 8 and 9.

In addition to that, the President stated that 79 schools have been constructed across the hinterland in the last four years while 27 have been renovated and an additional 54 are under construction.

“Today we have the highest attendance in schools across the hinterland, we have more hinterland students transitioning to secondary education, that is why we are investing to ensure that you have universal access to secondary education,” the President said.

Further, the President has promised more jobs for youths and other business opportunities for hinterland residents. He also promised to increased the presidential grant to $542M to be distributed in hinterland villages, additional resources to secure cultural expressions and grants to religious organisations in Indigenous communities.

“We are happy, that as a government we are able to facilitate such massive a transformation but at the end of the day it is your accomplishment, and we must remember who facilitate the transformation, we must remember who we can trust to continue such transformation,” the President said.

The National Toshaos Conference has brought together indigenous leaders from the ten administrative regions. They will spend the rest of the week examining issues of concern to their communities as well as national issues.