Kali­fa Clyne

Ari­ma May­or George Hadeed says the bor­ough may have to cut back on events for this year's Car­ni­val be­cause it does not have enough fund­ing.Last year, the bor­ough re­ceived $300,000 from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and an­oth­er $300,000 from the Min­istry of Arts to host its events.At the launch of Ari­ma Car­ni­val at the Ari­ma Town Hall yes­ter­day, Hadeed said the bor­ough had re­ceived funds from the NCC but would not be re­ceiv­ing any funds from the min­istry.He said he had a meet­ing with the NCC this month on ad­di­tion­al fund­ing and it had promised to make an ef­fort to help."We are al­so seek­ing as­sis­tance from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and so far it has been okay but there is still a short­fall," Hadeed said.

Yes­ter­day's launch was an ex­am­ple of the cut­backs that would be need­ed in­stead of a big af­fair with per­for­mances from so­ca artistes, the bor­ough coun­cil held the launch for a small group, in­clud­ing the me­dia.Hadeed said the bor­ough would have to cut back on prize mon­ey for com­pe­ti­tions.He added: "We can­not cut back on in­fra­struc­ture so we would have to de­crease prize monies for var­i­ous com­pe­ti­tions if we do not re­ceive any fund­ing."Whichev­er ar­eas we can cut back on we will cut back."Hadeed said in ad­di­tion to Car­ni­val is­sues the bor­ough was await­ing the com­ple­tion of the Ari­ma Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­plex and re­pairs to the velo­drome.