KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Car­ni­val 2026 in San Fer­nan­do will go ahead with­out a com­pe­ti­tion af­ter the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee an­nounced it can­not af­ford to pay prizes due to a $200,000 short­fall from its 2025 al­lo­ca­tion.

The de­ci­sion was made at a stake­hold­er meet­ing at City Hall on Mon­day, where May­or and com­mit­tee chair­man Robert Par­ris ex­plained that the com­mit­tee had been in dis­cus­sions with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) since last Sep­tem­ber. At that time, the NCC had not yet ap­proved a Car­ni­val bud­get, pre­vent­ing the com­mit­tee from host­ing a launch.

“We wait­ed un­til we got an ap­proval, and the ap­proval was $700,000. That is what the phone call was to our co­or­di­na­tor, and when we went up last week to col­lect the first cheque, which is for the in­fra­struc­ture, the let­ter stat­ed $500,000,” Par­ris said.

He added that the com­mit­tee re­ceived no ex­pla­na­tion for the re­duced al­lo­ca­tion but re­mains open to fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the NCC and Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin.

Faced with fi­nan­cial con­straints, the com­mit­tee and stake­hold­ers de­cid­ed to for­go the com­pe­ti­tion as­pect this year.

In­stead, bands and per­form­ers will par­tic­i­pate in a “friend­ly ri­val­ry,” with tro­phies award­ed but no com­pet­i­tive judg­ing.

“$700,000 is not enough to run a Car­ni­val in the city of San Fer­nan­do,” Par­ris told Guardian Me­dia.

He re­called that in 2013, the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee re­ceived $2 mil­lion, al­low­ing a suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val, and not­ed that years of debt have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed due to in­suf­fi­cient funds.

“All the stake­hold­ers stat­ed that ‘we will not ac­cept any com­pe­ti­tion this year in terms of that as­pect of the prize giv­ing. What we will do is have a friend­ly ri­val­ry.’ They are ask­ing for an ap­pear­ance fee, just as is done in City Month J’Ou­vert. They want us to in­vite the en­tire coun­try and world to San Fer­nan­do to see ex­act­ly why San Fer­nan­do is worth more than $500,000 in terms of your ex­pe­ri­ence.”

The San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the sus­pen­sion of the com­pet­i­tive as­pect of Car­ni­val 2026 in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

The de­ci­sion fol­lowed a re­view of fund­ing lev­els, which the com­mit­tee de­scribed as in­suf­fi­cient to sup­port a full com­pe­ti­tion-based event.

“Op­er­a­tional costs and the need for fair and sus­tain­able par­tic­i­pa­tion for all bands were al­so con­sid­ered,” the state­ment said.

De­spite the sus­pen­sion of com­pe­ti­tion, the com­mit­tee con­firmed that Car­ni­val 2026 will pro­ceed as sched­uled.

Bands will pa­rade through the city, bring­ing colour, cre­ativ­i­ty and cul­ture to the streets.

Band reg­is­tra­tion with the NCC is now open, with no reg­is­tra­tion fee.

Bands are re­quired on­ly to com­plete the of­fi­cial reg­is­tra­tion form, while all stan­dard NCC re­quire­ments and dead­lines re­main in ef­fect.

The com­mit­tee says this ap­proach re­duces the fi­nan­cial bur­den on bands and en­cour­ages par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The com­mit­tee has al­so is­sued a call for spon­sor­ships and strate­gic sup­port from cor­po­rate T&T, pri­vate stake­hold­ers and cul­tur­al sup­port­ers.

Con­tri­bu­tions can in­clude fi­nan­cial spon­sor­ship, in-kind sup­port, ser­vices, lo­gis­tics or long-term strate­gic part­ner­ships.

Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val co-band leader Ayan­na Kalicha­ran-Ma­hase said her band has no is­sue with the can­cel­la­tion of prize mon­ey, recog­nis­ing the fund­ing chal­lenges.

She re­called that even in a pre­vi­ous year, her band par­tic­i­pat­ed with­out com­pet­ing af­ter dis­agree­ing with the judg­ing points.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, NCC chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai said he was un­aware of the com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion and would need to in­ves­ti­gate be­fore com­ment­ing.