Shas­tri Boodan

and Akash Sama­roo

This year’s Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions have been dealt a se­vere blow with the pull­out of bmo­bile as an event spon­sor, prompt­ing the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) to ap­peal to the Gov­ern­ment for fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to stage the an­nu­al event.

NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo yes­ter­day con­firmed the with­draw­al of bmo­bile. He point­ed out that the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) is al­so not par­tic­i­pat­ing this year, hav­ing al­so not done so last year, while Caribbean Air­lines, which last sup­port­ed the event in 2024, al­so opt­ed out this year.

Man­ga­roo said all com­mer­cial spaces at the Di­vali Na­gar, which opens on Oc­to­ber 30, have been ful­ly booked, but the ab­sence of state en­ter­pris­es re­mains a con­cern.

“We are not get­ting any sup­port from some of the state en­ter­pris­es. Bmo­bile is not on board with us this year. We’re not sure what the rea­son is for that,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said First Cit­i­zens Bank will re­turn as a par­tic­i­pant, con­tin­u­ing its sup­port from last year.

Man­ga­roo said the 2026 Di­vali Na­gar is ex­pect­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5 mil­lion to stage, and the NCIC is once again seek­ing Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance. He not­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived $500,000 in Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for the 2025 cel­e­bra­tions.

George Singh, head of Southex Pro­mo­tions and cor­po­rate project man­ag­er for Di­vali Na­gar, said spon­sor­ship pro­pos­als were sent to the NL­CB and sev­er­al oth­er state en­ti­ties.

He said CAL de­clined to par­tic­i­pate while the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) did not re­spond.

“TSTT had been there for a few years. We sent the pro­pos­al and didn’t get any re­sponse,” he said.

Al­though all com­mer­cial booths have been sold, Singh said cor­po­rate spon­sor­ships re­main be­low ex­pec­ta­tions.

“Con­sid­er­ing that Di­vali Na­gar is a free event, when you lose that kind of spon­sor­ship, it can crip­ple the event,” he said.

Singh at­trib­uted the slow re­sponse from cor­po­rate T&T to broad­er eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and cost-cut­ting mea­sures by some com­pa­nies.

He said Na­tion­al Flour Mills re­mains com­mit­ted to the event, but the with­draw­al of Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um, TSTT, NL­CB and CAL rep­re­sents an es­ti­mat­ed loss of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000 in spon­sor­ship sup­port.

While cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing, Singh said he was not at lib­er­ty to dis­close ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial de­tails.

De­spite the fund­ing chal­lenges, he stressed that the event would pro­ceed as planned, al­though they may need to re­struc­ture some as­pects of the pro­gramme.

This year’s theme, “Vive­ka: Dis­cern­ing Truth in the Age of AI,” fo­cus­es on the im­por­tance of dis­tin­guish­ing truth from mis­in­for­ma­tion in an era in­creas­ing­ly shaped by ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

The NCIC has in­vit­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Michelle Ben­jamin to at­tend the fi­nal night of cel­e­bra­tions on No­vem­ber 7.

Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali was ex­pect­ed to serve as chief guest but will be un­able to at­tend due to King Charles III’s state vis­it to Guyana on Oc­to­ber 29 and 30, and will now be rep­re­sent­ed by the Speak­er of Guyana’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly.

Padarath: Fo­cus will be on com­mu­ni­ty events

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said bmo­bile’s de­ci­sion to with­draw its sup­port for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar is in­tend­ed to bring Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions di­rect­ly in­to com­mu­ni­ties, rather than spend­ing mon­ey on elab­o­rate pro­mo­tion­al booths at the an­nu­al event.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns over the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny’s ab­sence from the event, Padarath said TSTT was re­align­ing its cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­gramme to fo­cus on ini­tia­tives that would ben­e­fit more cit­i­zens.

He said, “Our par­tic­i­pa­tion in Di­vali Na­gar has of­ten been an ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­er­cise where you have this grand booth and all they do is push pa­per, pam­phlets and give out para­pher­na­lia,” Padarath said.

He ex­plained that TSTT’s board has de­cid­ed to redi­rect fund­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly spent on the event to­wards com­mu­ni­ty-based Di­vali ac­tiv­i­ties in 2026.

“We thought that we need­ed to en­gage in some­thing that was more mean­ing­ful,” he said.

Padarath main­tained that tak­ing the cel­e­bra­tions in­to com­mu­ni­ties would al­low the com­pa­ny to reach more peo­ple and pro­vide greater val­ue for its ex­pen­di­ture.

He ques­tioned the ben­e­fits of main­tain­ing what he de­scribed as “glo­ri­fied booths” that dis­trib­uted pro­mo­tion­al ma­te­ri­als with­out gen­er­at­ing any mean­ing­ful re­turn.