The seem­ing­ly overnight ban on Ude­cott and oth­er state-owned and man­aged venues for car­ni­val fetes, has come like the Bib­li­cal “thief in the night”, a cou­ple of months away from the Car­ni­val sea­son 2026. More­over, the de­ci­sion has been tak­en and an­nounced seem­ing­ly with­out ap­pro­pri­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ex­pla­na­tion as to why it has be­come nec­es­sary for im­me­di­ate ac­tion.

Un­doubt­ed­ly, a Gov­ern­ment in of­fice has the pow­er to make de­ci­sions in the na­tion­al in­ter­est. How­ev­er, giv­en the sud­den­ness of the de­ci­sion tak­en with­out any vis­i­ble and prop­er con­sul­ta­tion with the in­ter­ests in­volved, i.e., the na­tion, the treat­ment seems un­fair in the ex­treme.

Dis­turbing­ly, it’s un­fair treat­ment to the fete pro­mot­ers, the “Car­ni­val­ists”, those small per­sons sell­ing corn soup and dou­bles out­side and in­side of venues, those who pick up dis­card­ed bot­tles at fetes and shows, the man­u­fac­tur­ers of bev­er­ages and oth­er nec­es­sary goods and ser­vices to make for good T&T fet­ing.

With the de­ci­sion tak­en less than two months be­fore the Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties start, plans made, artistes hired, ven­dors de­cid­ed up­on, tick­ets print­ed, mu­sic dee­jays con­tract­ed at cost to pro­mot­ers and oth­ers, what is go­ing to hap­pen to the in­vest­ments made? What of ex­pect­ed rev­enue to be earned by the Trea­sury from the Car­ni­val fetes? Is this an­oth­er act of fore­go­ing scarce rev­enue?

Whether there are those who like it or not, Car­ni­val and all the things in­volved are not mere­ly a ma­jor cul­tur­al event, but a se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty amount­ing to un­spec­i­fied bil­lions.

As to be­ing con­cerned about the ef­fects on the men­tal health of cit­i­zens in their homes, their cas­tle, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has every re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to look af­ter such in­di­vid­u­als and groups and to take ac­tion as re­quired. Nonethe­less, crit­i­cal ac­tion with wide­spread im­pli­ca­tions must sure­ly be con­sid­ered, in­ves­ti­gat­ed, and dis­cussed with all the stake­hold­ers be­fore the de­ci­sion is tak­en.

What al­so has to be con­sid­ered is the fact that oth­er na­tion­al events which take place at the Hasley Craw­ford Sta­di­um, the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, NA­PA and SAPA, the Di­vali site, are held in com­mu­ni­ties far clos­er to res­i­den­tial ar­eas com­pared to the Lara sta­di­um.

“Fair­ness” has been a mantra of the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment, but that prin­ci­ple has to be led by the Gov­ern­ment; oth­er­wise, it will seem a hol­low as­pi­ra­tion not sup­port­ed by prac­tice.

As to the is­sue of noise pol­lu­tion, it’s one of con­sid­er­able im­por­tance, one which needs se­ri­ous at­ten­tion backed by re­search and sci­en­tif­ic un­der­stand­ing of the con­se­quences of it and how cit­i­zens have to be pro­tect­ed against its ef­fects.

The Prime Min­is­ter may be op­er­at­ing on the ba­sis of be­ing per­ceived as de­ci­sive and in­tent on tak­ing ac­tion, which she and her par­ty flagged in a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. How­ev­er, be­ing de­ci­sive should nev­er be con­fused with act­ing with­out mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion.