Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les be­lieves the ban­ning of fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my was on­ly the be­gin­ning, and that oth­er prop­er­ties man­aged by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) may soon fol­low.

At the Op­po­si­tion’s week­ly news brief­ing yes­ter­day, Beck­les ques­tioned why the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my was sin­gled out if the Prime Min­is­ter’s stat­ed con­cern was noise pol­lu­tion.

She ar­gued that noise pol­lu­tion was not unique to that venue and sug­gest­ed that, us­ing the same log­ic, fetes at oth­er lo­ca­tions may soon face sim­i­lar bans.

“If I re­call specif­i­cal­ly the doc­u­ment from Ude­cott, it is now not on­ly go­ing to be Bri­an Lara, but it is al­so go­ing to be oth­er fa­cil­i­ties for which Ude­cott has re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. So we have to as­sume that the Hy­att, In­vaders Bay, and any oth­er fa­cil­i­ty that is man­aged by Ude­cott will no longer have any fetes.”

Mean­while, Beck­les crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as dis­re­spect to par­ty pro­mot­ers and, by ex­ten­sion, the pub­lic.

“Why no con­sul­ta­tion? Be­cause these are fa­cil­i­ties that are owned by the State, ba­si­cal­ly owned by the pub­lic. And why would the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter say that she will not have a meet­ing with the pro­mot­ers when the ques­tion was asked?”

She al­so ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment has cer­tain “plans” for the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my.

“This is not the per­son­al prop­er­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter. Bri­an Lara is not the per­son­al prop­er­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter. But it may very well be that there may be plans for the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. And we will wait, very pa­tient­ly, as to whether or not there is some­body who has an in­ter­est in the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. And we will wait very much in short or­der to see whether that is in fact the case.”

Beck­les added that the PNM will be keep­ing a close eye on the re­cent ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency to see how it af­fects Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day in 2026.