Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Point Fortin May­or Clyde James is ap­peal­ing for ur­gent Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance as the bor­ough pre­pares for its Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, which face sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial chal­lenges ahead of their launch.

Flanked by mem­bers of the coun­cil, James said in a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia that the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion had been bur­dened with a $300,000 debt af­ter its main spon­sor, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, with­drew sup­port fol­low­ing last year’s gen­er­al elec­tions.

Al­though some of the debt has since been re­duced, he not­ed that the fi­nan­cial strain con­tin­ues to af­fect prepa­ra­tions for this year’s events.

James said that de­spite Bor­ough Day be­ing de­clared a na­tion­al fes­ti­val last year, the Cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived just $76,000 in its 2026 bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for fes­tiv­i­ties.

He added that let­ters were sent to sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­istries, in­clud­ing Cul­ture, Tourism, and Sport and Youth Af­fairs, but no re­spons­es had been re­ceived up to yes­ter­day.

The may­or said dis­cus­sions were al­so held with Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar, who in­di­cat­ed he had been en­gag­ing var­i­ous min­istries for as­sis­tance, but those ef­forts have so far been un­suc­cess­ful.

James said Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um re­spond­ed to cor­re­spon­dence last Fri­day, con­firm­ing it would not spon­sor this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

“Peo­ple, our Gov­ern­ment is not as­sist­ing us. Our MP is not as­sist­ing us. All we are get­ting is lip ser­vice, and it is time the peo­ple of Point Fortin know where we are at,” he said.

While some sup­port has come from cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing spon­sor­ship from At­lantic LNG for the “Pan on the Move” event, James said Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance re­mains crit­i­cal.

“We are ap­peal­ing to the peo­ple for as­sis­tance. Bor­ough Day has be­come a na­tion­al fes­ti­val, and we are cel­e­brat­ing 46 years as a bor­ough, which is a very sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone. With­out the as­sis­tance of the Gov­ern­ment, that will not be pos­si­ble,” he said.

De­spite the chal­lenges, the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion said it re­mains com­mit­ted to host­ing the cel­e­bra­tions.

Up to news time last evening, there had been no re­sponse to queries sent to sev­er­al min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, and MP Ernesto Ke­sar.