?The In­do-Trin­ba­go Equal­i­ty Coun­cil (Itec) calls up­on the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, to im­me­di­ate­ly ex­plain why the Na­tion­al Chut­ney Foun­da­tion was re­fused use of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) to host the World Chut­ney So­ca Monarch.

Me­dia re­ports in­di­cat­ed that ac­cord­ing to pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Chut­ney Foun­da­tion, Vi­jay Ram­lal, Min­is­ter Mc­Don­ald re­fused be­cause the fa­cil­i­ty was–in her view–not built for "those kinds of things." Giv­en that chut­ney and chut­ney so­ca are In­do-Trinida­di­an cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions that are now con­sid­ered part of our main­stream cul­tur­al land­scape, Itec asks the min­is­ter to de­fine what is meant by "those kind of things." Is the min­is­ter im­ply­ing that the Na­pa is not to be used for In­di­an cul­tur­al events? And if not, could the min­is­ter clar­i­fy and spec­i­fy the kinds of In­di­an cul­tur­al events that she would find ac­cept­able for the hal­lowed halls of Na­pa?

It ap­pears that Na­pa was not on­ly to be built by friends of the rul­ing PNM but is per­haps al­so for the sole and ex­clu­sive use of the PNM, its ser­vants and its agents. This would be con­sis­tent with the im­ple­men­ta­tion of oth­er gov­ern­ment po­lices by this min­istry, such as the re­cent award of $46 mil­lion worth of "schol­ar­ships" to friends, fam­i­ly and sup­port­ers of the PNM. Itec anx­ious­ly awaits the min­is­ter's re­sponse, fail­ing which it will file a com­plaint with the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Com­mis­sion and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for a vi­o­la­tion of the code of ethics gov­ern­ing peo­ple in pub­lic life.

De­vant Ma­haraj

Chair­man, Itec