KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With Point Fortin Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions set to be­gin this week­end, Point Fortin Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Ernesto Ke­sar is urg­ing stake­hold­ers to set aside po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences as he re­spond­ed to fund­ing con­cerns raised by the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

“It is al­ready late. Let us put our dif­fer­ences aside po­lit­i­cal­ly and make sure that we have the great­est fes­ti­val,” Ke­sar said dur­ing a live Face­book brief­ing at his con­stituen­cy of­fice on Mon­day evening.

The ap­peal came af­ter May­or Clyde James last Thurs­day high­light­ed fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing the cor­po­ra­tion, re­veal­ing that on­ly $76,000 had been al­lo­cat­ed for the fes­tiv­i­ties, while debts stood at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $300,000, some of which have since been re­duced.

James al­so said Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um had de­nied a spon­sor­ship re­quest, while let­ters sent to sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing Cul­ture, Tourism and Sport and Youth Af­fairs, re­ceived no re­spons­es.

De­spite the con­straints, he main­tained that the cel­e­bra­tions would go ahead, with the launch of the two-week fes­ti­val set for Sat­ur­day and a church ser­vice on Sun­day, al­though con­cerns re­mained about the over­all ex­e­cu­tion.

Re­spond­ing to those claims, Ke­sar said now was not the time for what he de­scribed as a “bud­getary war,” ar­gu­ing that fund­ing re­quests should have been made be­fore the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived its al­lo­ca­tion.

He ques­tioned why a long­stand­ing an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion had be­come the sub­ject of con­tro­ver­sy, but ac­knowl­edged that the sit­u­a­tion had drawn na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

He main­tained that the peo­ple of Point Fortin re­main at the cen­tre of the cel­e­bra­tions and said the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment is ful­ly sup­port­ive.

Ke­sar added that he spoke with Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin on Mon­day morn­ing, and she is ex­pect­ed to is­sue a state­ment be­fore the end of the week.

He said that dur­ing a meet­ing with James, he in­di­cat­ed that events such as the busi­ness and health fair were rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple to host and that re­fresh­ments could be spon­sored through his of­fice.

He added that Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts has com­mit­ted to as­sist­ing.

“Maybe that was not good enough. I do not know, but in­deed, I con­tin­ue to say to the whole of Trinidad and To­ba­go that Bor­ough Day 2026, it ain’t no tricks, come down and get in the mix.”

De­spite the con­cerns raised, Ke­sar said pro­mot­ers of paid events have re­port­ed strong in­ter­est, with some ac­tiv­i­ties al­ready sold out.

He not­ed that Pan on the Move is pro­ceed­ing as planned and that vis­i­tors have al­ready be­gun mak­ing arrange­ments to trav­el to Point Fortin, sug­gest­ing the cel­e­bra­tions could pro­ceed suc­cess­ful­ly.

Ke­sar added that while Bor­ough Day was tra­di­tion­al­ly or­gan­ised by the cor­po­ra­tion, its des­ig­na­tion as a na­tion­al fes­ti­val has re­quired Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment.

He said he has ex­tend­ed sup­port to the may­or but be­lieves his ef­forts have not al­ways been ac­cept­ed.

“In­deed, we are in a pe­cu­liar ad­min­is­tra­tive sit­u­a­tion, but we will work it out, and that has been the mes­sage I have been say­ing to the may­or and his team from the be­gin­ning.

“Lis­ten, you all are ac­cus­tomed in a par­tic­u­lar way. It is your ad­min­is­tra­tion that made it a na­tion­al fes­ti­val, so guess what, you have to deal with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment while ap­ply­ing for your dif­fer­ent fund­ing from your pri­vate fun­ders. That is no prob­lem.”

Ke­sar said the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to lend sup­port through var­i­ous min­istries.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, James did not re­spond di­rect­ly to Ke­sar’s com­ments but con­firmed that their re­la­tion­ship re­mains cor­dial and that dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing.

He added that a sched­uled meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen had been post­poned, but she is ex­pect­ed to meet with mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to­day at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

“I am hop­ing to talk to her sep­a­rate­ly to dis­cuss the is­sues we are fac­ing in Point Fortin,” James said.