KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the State of Emer­gency end­ing be­fore the height of the cur­rent Car­ni­val sea­son and the fail­ure of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill in Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she ex­pects a fair­ly safe 2026 Car­ni­val.

Speak­ing at the Siparia Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion’s 28th an­nu­al Kid­dies Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in Pe­nal yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, un­der the Min­istries of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and De­fence, were ful­ly mo­bilised for the sea­son, with all re­serves called out and ready to be de­ployed.

“We are al­ways con­cerned about crime. To­mor­row, I have a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing, and we will have fur­ther dis­cus­sions about the way for­ward,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She urged rev­ellers head­ing to the streets for mas or those go­ing to the beach­es to en­joy them­selves while be­ing re­spon­si­ble.

“I wish all a safe, safe, safe sea­son.”

As­sess­ing the sea­son so far, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had pre­dict­ed a bumper Car­ni­val from the start de­spite ear­ly scep­ti­cism.

“With all the da­ta we have now, this Car­ni­val is go­ing to be a re­al­ly bumper Car­ni­val. From the ar­rivals, the fetes and the events, it is grow­ing and grow­ing and grow­ing, and I am very con­vinced it will be a bumper Car­ni­val 2026,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she had been par­tic­i­pat­ing in sev­er­al events and not­ed that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er min­istries, was host­ing a joint event to­day fol­low­ing a sit­ting of Cab­i­net. She said she was tak­ing the rest of the sea­son one day at a time and had even vis­it­ed the Fla­va Vil­lage.

Against that op­ti­mism, she al­so ad­dressed com­plaints from the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, which said its al­lo­ca­tion had been re­duced from $700,000 to $500,000, forc­ing the can­cel­la­tion of its an­nu­al Mon­day and Tues­day com­pe­ti­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she wished the Gov­ern­ment could give more fund­ing, but in­sist­ed it had done the best it could.

“No mat­ter how much is giv­en, peo­ple al­ways want more. It is hu­man na­ture. I know the NCC and the two min­is­ters in that min­istry tried their best and are do­ing well. This is your time, our time and a time for Trinidad and To­ba­go. They will step up to the plate, and there will be bumper crowds every­where and a tremen­dous Car­ni­val sea­son.”

She said she was in­spired by the turnout of young peo­ple at the Kid­dies Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, not­ing the event had been held for 28 years and re­flect­ed grow­ing ex­cite­ment in her con­stituen­cy.

She al­so wel­comed what she de­scribed as good news for Pe­nal, point­ing to Holy Faith Con­vent’s vic­to­ry in the Na­tion­al Schools Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion in the Sec­ondary Schools cat­e­go­ry for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year.

“There is great tal­ent in Pe­nal.”

It was a colour­ful, cre­ative and live­ly dis­play of cul­ture dur­ing yes­ter­day’s event, with a pa­rade mov­ing along the SS Erin Road be­fore cul­mi­nat­ing in a jump-up on stage at the Petrotrin Recre­ation Ground on Clarke Road. The event in­volved 14 preschools and a com­pe­ti­tion among six pri­ma­ry schools.

Ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence ear­li­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again had a mes­sage for rev­ellers, urg­ing them to en­joy the sea­son while main­tain­ing their dig­ni­ty.

“Keep it clean. Keep it safe, and on Ash Wednes­day fete done. Back to work.”

She al­so said every child who had been promised a lap­top had re­ceived one by yes­ter­day.

Look­ing at the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion next door, the Prime Min­is­ter re­called that it was built un­der her for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion and an­nounced that it would re­ceive one of the six new fire trucks which ar­rived in the coun­try last week.

“We have six, and we need more. Af­ter ten years, we are wait­ing. Promise made, promise kept. This fire sta­tion and oth­er fire sta­tions across the coun­try will re­ceive new fire trucks.”