Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin and the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee are mov­ing for­ward, even af­ter she is­sued a sting­ing me­dia re­lease on Sun­day de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty from the or­gan­i­sa­tion over gov­ern­ment fi­nanc­ing.

Hours af­ter the state­ment, which was con­demned by for­mer min­is­ter of cul­ture Ran­dall Mitchell and Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Ben­jamin said she met with the ES­CTT.

“We met again as re­cent­ly as last night (Sun­day) and to­day. I am con­fi­dent in our shared com­mit­ment to ho­n­our­ing the lega­cy of Eman­ci­pa­tion with the dig­ni­ty and re­spect it de­serves. We move for­ward to­geth­er,” she said yes­ter­day.

On Fri­day, dur­ing the of­fi­cial launch of the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Vil­lage, head of the ES­CTT, ex­ec­u­tive chair Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da, said this year’s fes­ti­val was un­der fi­nan­cial strain as no fund­ing had yet come from Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, in her state­ment, Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged the con­cerns raised but said re­form of the fes­ti­val was ur­gent­ly need­ed. She al­so high­light­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s weak­ness­es and gov­ern­ment al­lo­ca­tions over the last five years (2020–2024).

But yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said her min­istry has com­mit­ted $1.4 mil­lion to the ES­CTT for this year’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

“While there may have been dif­fer­ences in tone or lan­guage, I want to em­pha­sise that our di­a­logue with the ES­CTT has been on­go­ing,” Ben­jamin said.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-led ad­min­is­tra­tion came in­to of­fice, there was no fi­nan­cial pro­vi­sion made by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment for Eman­ci­pa­tion. De­spite this, she said she made it a pri­or­i­ty to find the nec­es­sary re­sources.

“The min­istry re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to work­ing along­side the com­mit­tee, as we have from the very be­gin­ning,” she said.

She added that the fund­ing will be pro­vid­ed through the min­istry’s Na­tion­al Days and Fes­ti­vals Vote, which sup­ports recog­nised ob­ser­vances, in­clud­ing Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Day, East­er, Eid-ul-Fitr and In­di­an Ar­rival Day, to name a few.

How­ev­er, for­mer min­is­ter Mitchell said Ben­jamin’s de­ci­sion to is­sue such a scathing re­lease, cas­ti­gat­ing the ES­CTT mere days be­fore African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, was in­sen­si­tive and em­bar­rass­ing to the com­mu­ni­ty be­ing com­mem­o­rat­ed and cel­e­brat­ed.

“Rather than fo­cus­ing on fos­ter­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship, the min­is­ter, hav­ing tak­en up the post a mere three months ago, has cho­sen to pub­licly scold one of the na­tion’s old­est and most re­spect­ed cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said.

“At a time where the com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brates African Eman­ci­pa­tion, what is re­quired is col­lab­o­ra­tion and en­cour­age­ment, not con­dem­na­tion.”

Out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga said he hoped such con­ver­sa­tions would have hap­pened be­hind closed doors, es­pe­cial­ly with African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day mere days away.

Pic­tures show­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ben­jamin and oth­er mem­bers of the UNC-led Gov­ern­ment at the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah over the week­end, were post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing.

For­mer min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, cul­ture and the arts, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, said the rec­om­men­da­tions made by Ben­jamin were not nov­el or ground-break­ing and could have been dis­cussed post-sea­son with the ES­CTT.

She de­scribed the min­is­ter’s use of this sa­cred pe­ri­od to de­cry, rather than ho­n­our, as dis­re­spect­ful, and said it shows clear dis­dain and dis­re­gard for the African com­mu­ni­ty. “Poor judge­ment,” she end­ed.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Uzoma-Wada­da yes­ter­day, but she in­di­cat­ed she was not yet ready to com­ment.

Ben­jamin said be­tween Oc­to­ber 2024 and Ju­ly 2025, the min­istry sup­port­ed 89 or­gan­i­sa­tions with a to­tal al­lo­ca­tion of $3,946,884.00. She said this fig­ure does not in­clude the ES­CTT’s pend­ing al­lo­ca­tion.