Geisha Kow­lessar

Tax­pay­ers are ex­pect­ed to shell out more than $7 mil­lion for a mil­i­tary tat­too which is ex­pect­ed to form part of the grand plans of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry for the coun­try's cel­e­bra­tions of 50 years of In­de­pen­dence. De­fence Force lieu­tenant colonel Roger Carter, how­ev­er, said $2 mil­lion of the cost is ex­pect­ed to be re­cov­ered from tick­et sales in Au­gust.

Na­tion­als from Great Britain and Ja­maica are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the tat­too. Carter was speak­ing at yes­ter­day's launch of the cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties and events in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the an­niver­sary. The launch was held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain.

Carter said the com­mu­ni­ty car­a­van, an­oth­er seg­ment of ac­tiv­i­ties, is billed at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $880,000. A cost, how­ev­er, is yet to be al­lo­cat­ed to the air show which will take place at Pi­ar­co Air­port. He said the De­fence Force was still await­ing replies from for­eign coun­tries to de­ter­mine their par­tic­i­pa­tion. The over­all cost for the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty bud­get, Carter said, would be more than $7 mil­lion.

"It will cross the $7 mil­lion fig­ure, but we will re­cov­er some costs through things like gate re­ceipts," he said. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress, said a ma­jor com­po­nent of the cel­e­bra­tions en­tailed Pa­tri­o­tism, En­vi­ron­men­tal and Cit­i­zen­ship Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme (PEACE).

"This pro­gramme is the on­go­ing strat­e­gy of the min­istry to pre­vent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties through in­ter­ven­tions such as our Na­tion­al Men­tor­ship Pro­gramme, Mak­ing Life Im­por­tant Pro­gramme, and the Cit­i­zens Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme," he said. He said un­less cit­i­zens de­lib­er­ate­ly take steps to pro­mote and sus­tain pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zen­ship, the lib­er­ty and free­dom that are en­joyed could be tak­en for grant­ed and lost to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry has been col­lab­o­rat­ing a num­ber of agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment to en­sure that cel­e­bra­tions are co-or­di­nat­ed smooth­ly, Sandy said.

• A mil­i­tary tat­too is a dis­play of mil­i­tary march­ing bands, skills, drills and tac­tics.