KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With just ten days un­til mas­quer­aders take the streets, San Fer­nan­do stake­hold­ers be­lieve there is still time for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to re­store com­pe­ti­tion and strength­en Car­ni­val in San Fer­nan­do, even as the city grap­ples with the ef­fects of a re­duced sub­ven­tion.

The re­newed push fol­lows rev­e­la­tions that Car­ni­val fund­ing had been cut, prompt­ing the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee to re­move com­pe­ti­tions from this year’s cel­e­bra­tions. May­or Robert Par­ris, who con­vened a me­dia con­fer­ence at San Fer­nan­do City Hall, said he re­mains hope­ful for a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin on the mat­ter.

Par­ris ex­plained that ear­li­er this month, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) had in­di­cat­ed it would pro­vide the same $700,000 al­lo­ca­tion as in 2025. How­ev­er, when the con­fir­ma­tion let­ter was col­lect­ed this week, it stat­ed $500,000. As a re­sult, he said the com­mit­tee met with stake­hold­ers, who sug­gest­ed fore­go­ing prize mon­ey and re­quest­ing on­ly ap­pear­ance fees.

BMan and Lord Street Fu­sion leader Al­lick An­tho­ny Charles said it was dif­fi­cult to pre­dict whether a late gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion could re­store com­pe­ti­tion. He added that Car­ni­val en­thu­si­asts had em­braced a friend­ly ri­val­ry on the streets once it be­came clear funds were in­suf­fi­cient, but warned that re­mov­ing the com­pet­i­tive el­e­ment could damp­en the spir­its of young mas mak­ers.

“But if mon­ey can come in now, prob­a­bly the min­istry may not have heard us clear­ly. If the min­is­ter can hear us now, like Bar­rack­pore and Moru­ga, let some mon­ey come to San Fer­nan­do, we will ap­pre­ci­ate that. Then, I think the hard-work­ing Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee will get to­geth­er with the stake­hold­ers, make night in­to day and prob­a­bly have Car­ni­val with com­pe­ti­tion,” Charles said.

He added that if ad­di­tion­al fund­ing does not come, the peo­ple would be­come the ul­ti­mate judges on the road and even in­vit­ed Ben­jamin and her fam­i­ly to par­tic­i­pate in the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val. De­spite the un­cer­tain­ty, Kalicha­ran Mas co-band­leader Ster­ling Ma­hase said mas­quer­aders were still sig­nalling their in­ten­tion to play.

Re­spond­ing to the con­tro­ver­sy, sparked by the fund­ing cut and the de­ci­sion to drop com­pe­ti­tions, Ben­jamin said re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tors were free to pe­ti­tion the NCC for fund­ing to fa­cil­i­tate judg­ing. She added that the min­istry and NCC were ready to sup­port such ef­forts and not­ed that her fam­i­ly par­tic­i­pates in J’Ou­vert in San Fer­nan­do.

“Judg­ing will go on with­out the city. If the City Cor­po­ra­tion is not ready to run the peo­ple’s Car­ni­val, the peo­ple will run their Car­ni­val,” Ben­jamin said.

Asked for a re­sponse, Par­ris said he did not want a war of words with the min­is­ter, stress­ing that cul­ture was more pow­er­ful than pol­i­tics. He not­ed that it was stake­hold­ers, not the min­istry, who had sug­gest­ed re­mov­ing com­pe­ti­tion and said Ben­jamin should meet with them di­rect­ly.

He main­tained that there had been no for­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the NCC con­firm­ing a re­duc­tion in fund­ing and ar­gued that $700,000 had been in­ad­e­quate for two con­sec­u­tive years, mak­ing $500,000 even more in­suf­fi­cient. While some busi­ness sup­port had been se­cured, he said it could on­ly fund prizes for the ju­nior ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion.

The dis­pute has widened be­yond the fes­ti­val it­self, with UNC coun­cil­lors ac­cus­ing the com­mit­tee of mak­ing uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions af­fect­ing Car­ni­val 2026 with­out con­sul­ta­tion. They ar­gued that no agen­da, com­pre­hen­sive plan or bud­get had been pre­sent­ed to Coun­cil. Giv­en that the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cov­ers most work­ers’ costs, they ques­tioned the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for cut­ting judg­ing and prizes.

The coun­cil­lors al­so con­tend­ed that the Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee had failed to op­er­ate with­in Coun­cil’s au­thor­i­ty, cit­ing no dis­clo­sure of its mem­ber­ship, no cal­en­dar of events, and no ap­proved de­ci­sions on routes, judg­ing or prize mon­ey. They called for an ur­gent Coun­cil meet­ing.

Par­ris re­ject­ed claims that the com­mit­tee had act­ed out­side its re­mit, say­ing the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee is au­tonomous from the City Cor­po­ra­tion and man­ages the NCC sub­ven­tion.

“It isn’t that the Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee or the chair­man has nev­er been in con­tact with NCC. What we have now is a new Gov­ern­ment, and cer­tain­ly, I do not think they un­der­stand the cor­po­rate gov­er­nance of Car­ni­val. We have clear­ly in­di­cat­ed that the San Fer­nan­do City Coun­cil is sep­a­rate from the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee,” Par­ris said.

Whether ad­di­tion­al fund­ing ma­te­ri­alis­es or not, band­lead­ers in­sist the Car­ni­val prod­uct in San Fer­nan­do will not be di­min­ished.