Bo­bie-lee Dixon

De­spite the Gov­ern­ment's nine-month pro­gramme of ac­tiv­i­ties launched in April to com­mem­o­rate T&T's 50th year of In­de­pen­dence, there have been com­plaints that the cal­en­dar of events pro­ject­ed by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my does not re­flect the ex­trav­a­gant way in which the mile­stone should be cel­e­brat­ed. On­line vis­i­tors to the min­istry's Web site, which has tem­porar­i­ly been shut down to be up­dat­ed, have post­ed their con­cerns about the events and have even com­pared the agen­da to that of Ja­maica, which is al­so cel­e­brat­ing its 50th an­niver­sary in Au­gust, with a wide range of ac­tiv­i­ties cen­tred on the arts and en­ter­tain­ment. A poll done by the T&T Guardian on Face­book re­vealed that a num­ber of peo­ple are not pleased with the ac­tiv­i­ties to mark the oc­ca­sion.

But Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my Min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie dis­missed all neg­a­tive state­ments on the agen­da, call­ing them un­fair and un­called for. "What more do they want?" he asked. "First of all, we are not com­pet­ing with Ja­maica. We do not view the cel­e­bra­tion of T&T's 50th an­niver­sary as a con­test." He said a range of ac­tiv­i­ties had al­ready tak­en place, with the ma­jor­i­ty be­ing cul­tur­al­ly re­lat­ed, and more are still to come. "There has been a num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties over the months that have tak­en place at the NA­PA, Na­pari­ma Bowl and Rudranath Capildeo Re­source Learn­ing Cen­tre in Cou­va, which were at­tend­ed by thou­sands," he em­pha­sised. He said there was an on­line com­pe­ti­tion, the Idea 2 In­no­va­tion Com­pe­ti­tion (i2i), cur­rent­ly go­ing on. This, he said, is a piv­otal part of the Gov­ern­ment's larg­er un­der­tak­ing of di­ver­si­fy­ing the na­tion­al econ­o­my and mov­ing to­wards be­com­ing a knowl­edge-dri­ven so­ci­ety. The main aim of the com­pe­ti­tion is to tap in­to the cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive po­ten­tial of cit­i­zens and pro­mote the cre­ation of em­ploy­ment, im­prove glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Tewarie said there is al­so the 50 Icons Project, which is be­ing over­seen by Dr Brins­ley Sama­roo and Dr Paula Mor­gan of UWI St Au­gus­tine. He said an Icons Cit­i­zen Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee has been ap­point­ed to guide the se­lec­tion of 50 icons of T&T who have made stel­lar con­tri­bu­tions in var­i­ous fields, nom­i­nat­ed by cit­i­zens.

"The Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism has a num­ber of on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, as well as the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with its com­mu­ni­ty car­a­vans and con­certs," he added. Tewarie said just last month the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment fa­cil­i­tat­ed an art ex­hi­bi­tion in Ja­maica en­ti­tled Sea­son of Re­new­al, which was geared to­wards cel­e­brat­ing 50 years of in­de­pen­dence and Caribbean part­ner­ship. He al­so high­light­ed his min­istry's in­volve­ment in sup­port­ing the sec­ond an­nu­al T&T lit­er­ary fes­ti­val, now known as the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, from April 25-29 in Port-of-Spain. "There are so many ac­tiv­i­ties that have passed, and many more to come lead­ing up to In­de­pen­dence and even af­ter. I re­al­ly can­not un­der­stand why peo­ple are say­ing noth­ing is go­ing on. "The ap­proach to the an­niver­sary is not a top-down one or a cel­e­bra­tion of na­tion­al he­roes. It is about putting cul­ture and cre­ativ­i­ty at the fore." He said if there is any is­sue with the 50th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, it is the lack of pub­lic­i­ty they've been re­ceiv­ing. "We have not been get­ting the kind of me­dia cov­er­age that is need­ed to high­light what is be­ing done to mark this achieve­ment," he ar­gued.

Up­com­ing events

• Na­tion­al Thanks­giv­ing Day in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO)

• Gold­en an­niver­sary tree-plant­i­ng, in recog­ni­tion of those born on In­de­pen­dence day

• Na­tion­al Tree-plant­i­ng Cer­e­mo­ny in recog­ni­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment

• In­de­pen­dence Uni­ty Cy­cle Race

• Di­verse TT Com­mu­ni­ty Re­lays

• PEACE Pro­gramme: Pa­tri­o­tism, En­vi­ron­men­tal and Cit­i­zen Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme for youths

• 50th-an­niver­sary his­tor­i­cal tours

• Sport His­to­ry Month (Au­gust)

• Lon­don Here We Come: A film project ty­ing in the xxx Olympiad

• The King­dom Come Fes­ti­val of Arts

Dates to be an­nounced on the Min­istry's Web site