KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed Op­po­si­tion claims that it in­ter­fered po­lit­i­cal­ly with the re­sults of the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta held last Sat­ur­day at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin de­nied any in­volve­ment in un­der­min­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who chose to per­form po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary, par­tic­u­lar­ly those crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment. She ar­gued that any per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal bias lies with the Op­po­si­tion.

“Ca­lyp­so and kaiso be­long to the coun­try, not to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” Ben­jamin said. “If there is po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, I would put that square­ly on the Op­po­si­tion, who like to feel ca­lyp­so be­longs to them. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-Gov­ern­ment of to­day and this Cab­i­net have not in­ter­fered in any way.”

Ben­jamin al­so ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of at­tempt­ing to dis­suade her from at­tend­ing ca­lyp­so events. “The day be­fore the Fi­es­ta, the Mem­ber for San Fer­nan­do East, Bri­an Man­ning, re­port­ed­ly told me not to en­ter the Fi­es­ta space and cau­tioned me if I did. Giv­en that it was my birth­day, I went in­to the Fi­es­ta space any­way. Last I checked, Trinidad and To­ba­go be­longs to every cit­i­zen,” she said.

The Min­is­ter added that the Gov­ern­ment, along with stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing TU­CO, en­sured every artiste was fa­cil­i­tat­ed dur­ing the event.

Look­ing ahead, Ben­jamin re­vealed plans to in­vest fur­ther in ca­lyp­so tents. “What I can tell you is that in the com­ing years, I will put more ef­fort in­to get­ting pa­trons back in­to the tents,” she said.