Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

Com­plaints from Fla­va Vil­lage pa­trons whose ve­hi­cles were parked near­by and lat­er wrecked have sparked a back-and-forth be­tween Port of Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin.

The min­is­ter be­lieves the wreck­ing is po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

“Now, pol­i­tics has a way of wear­ing its dirty head, not on­ly in the rub­bish in the city, but al­so with re­gards to the wreck­ing,” Ben­jamin said.

Mean­while, Al­leyne, speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s 70th an­niver­sary at Queen’s Hall on Mon­day, made it clear that the po­lice are re­spon­si­ble for en­forc­ing the law in the city.

“No, there’s no need for my of­fice to in­struct po­lice to en­force the law,” he said.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ben­jamin said Fla­va Vil­lage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah was her way of ad­dress­ing com­plaints she re­ceived when she be­came min­is­ter less than a year ago.

“I think this is, again, per­sons try­ing to be, and I would say, wicked with re­gards to the Car­ni­val prod­uct, and that would be cured, as I’m in the busi­ness of heal­ing these hurts that the pub­lic is feel­ing,” she said.

Ben­jamin said she would reach out to the may­or on this is­sue.

“Be­cause we both know where the wreck­ing ser­vice comes from,” she stat­ed.

How­ev­er, Al­leyne re­it­er­at­ed that the en­force­ment of laws, as it per­tains to park­ing, is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the po­lice, and he could not make any de­ter­mi­na­tion rel­a­tive to a grace pe­ri­od.

“I think that the min­is­ter’s com­ments are un­for­tu­nate and un­nec­es­sary giv­en that our fo­cus is mak­ing sure that we col­lab­o­rate with every­one and en­sure that we have a safe car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence,” he said.

He added that last Wednes­day, the Min­istry of Cul­ture host­ed a stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion chaired by Ben­jamin that in­clud­ed the goal com­man­der from the Po­lice Ser­vice, DCP Suzette Mar­tin.

He said it in­clud­ed se­nior of­fi­cials from the fire ser­vice and sev­er­al oth­er stake­hold­er agen­cies.

“We com­mit­ted to meet­ing week­ly on de­vel­op­ing what­ev­er else needs to be de­vel­oped for Car­ni­val... We’ve con­tin­ued to work very close­ly with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and with the Min­istry of Cul­ture on en­sur­ing that we do our part to en­sure that there’s a safe and suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tion,” he said.

Al­leyne said their fore­fa­thers shed blood dur­ing the Can­boulay Ri­ots in the 1800s and vowed to do what it takes to en­sure the city is ready for Car­ni­val, which is very im­por­tant to the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain.

What is Fla­va Vil­lage?

Fla­va Vil­lage is a culi­nary and cul­tur­al hub set up at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

It was launched on Jan­u­ary 8 by the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment as part of the build-up to Car­ni­val.

The space is meant to show­case lo­cal food ven­dors, cul­ture and en­ter­tain­ment, while giv­ing small en­tre­pre­neurs a struc­tured place to op­er­ate dur­ing the sea­son.