Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin says the Gov­ern­ment is not stop­ping fetes, but it is work­ing with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion to find al­ter­na­tive venues and cre­ate a more bal­anced, in­clu­sive Car­ni­val for 2026.

“We are not say­ing that we are stop­ping fetes. What we are do­ing is work­ing to iden­ti­fy and pro­mote more ap­pro­pri­ate spaces that can en­hance the ex­pe­ri­ence while re­duc­ing any neg­a­tive im­pact that could pos­si­bly arise.”

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that there would be an im­me­di­ate stop to fetes be­ing held at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, drew con­dem­na­tion from the Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Ben­jamin ex­plained the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to stop fetes at the Crick­et Acad­e­my was not about re­strict­ing Car­ni­val but about cre­at­ing bal­ance.

Ben­jamin said res­i­dents near the Tarou­ba venue have long com­plained about ex­ces­sive noise, and the Gov­ern­ment can­not ig­nore their con­cerns. She added that the move forms part of a wider plan to ex­pand Car­ni­val be­yond its tra­di­tion­al spaces, while en­sur­ing the com­fort and safe­ty of com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by large-scale events.

“The South­land re­mains a vi­tal hub of Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ty, and we are look­ing at dy­nam­ic ways to im­prove and di­ver­si­fy the ex­pe­ri­ence for all,” she said.

She said the goal is to pre­serve Car­ni­val’s en­er­gy and cre­ativ­i­ty while pro­mot­ing in­clu­siv­i­ty and sus­tain­able cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.