Kevon Felmine

In a brief ad­dress, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, al­so MP for the Or­toire/Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy, said the event was an his­tor­i­cal one, as it had brought all the dif­fer­ent fra­ter­ni­ties of Car­ni­val to­geth­er. "The uni­ty of the ar­eas with­in the re­gions will help to bring a big­ger and bet­ter Car­ni­val," he said, not­ing that Car­ni­val should no longer to be viewed on­ly as "jump and wine," but as a chance to mar­ket the coun­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. He added that Car­ni­val need­ed to be­come more self-suf­fi­cient. Pe­ters said be­cause of the eco­nom­ic frail­ties in this coun­try, Car­ni­val could be sub­ject­ed to a de­crease in the amount of fund­ing award­ed in the fu­ture. In clos­ing, he urged those in at­ten­dance to cel­e­brate Car­ni­val with­out law­less­ness and "just have fun." Spe­cial at­ten­dees to the event in­clud­ed Joseph Toney, chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Ray­mond Co­zi­er, vice chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, and mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and Tu­co.