Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There will be a new lo­ca­tion for the re­turn of the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade on Au­gust 31.

This year’s pa­rade will be in a new norther­ly lo­ca­tion in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain—fac­ing Pres­i­dent’s House—in­stead of at the Grand Stand, on the sa­van­nah’s souther­ly side.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo will there­fore be re­ceiv­ing the In­de­pen­dence Day salute from the armed forces clos­er to Pres­i­dent’s House.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, as well as Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress shad­ow MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Phillip Alexan­der.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge had con­firmed in the June Mid-year Bud­get Re­view that the pa­rade—launch­ing cel­e­bra­tions of T&T’s 64th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence—would be held.

Sturge’s con­fir­ma­tion put to rest spec­u­la­tion that the an­nu­al mil­i­tary and cul­tur­al show­case may not have been held. There was no pa­rade last year, as T&T was un­der a State of Emer­gency due to a threat to law en­force­ment, ju­di­cial and state of­fi­cials. Gov­ern­ment stat­ed then that the pa­rade and state-spon­sored fire­works were can­celled to pro­tect top state of­fi­cials from at­tack.

The up­com­ing event will be the first In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade for the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion, which was elect­ed in April 2025.

The pa­rade of the armed forces had tra­di­tion­al­ly been held at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah—and at the Grand Stand—since T&T achieved In­de­pen­dence in 1962, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Archives.

Uni­formed mil­i­tary de­tach­ments nor­mal­ly pa­rad­ed be­fore the Grand Stand, pre­sent­ing them­selves at at­ten­tion to salute the Pres­i­dent, who is the Com­man­der in Chief of the armed forces. Guests, gov­ern­ment, op­po­si­tion, diplo­mat­ic corps and oth­er peo­ple were usu­al­ly seat­ed in the Grand Stand.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and PoS North shad­ow MP Alexan­der con­firmed the pa­rade’s new lo­ca­tion af­ter queries by Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young.

Query­ing work tak­ing place in the Sa­van­nah op­po­site Pres­i­dent’s House, Young said on Face­book, “I was sur­prised to see what ap­pears to be a sig­nif­i­cant struc­ture be­ing erect­ed op­po­site the Pres­i­dent’s House in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah along with piles of ag­gre­gate and a steam roller.

“I’m ask­ing the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment what is be­ing erect­ed here and what paving, if any, is pro­posed to take place in the ‘Sa­van­nah’? Is this re­lat­ed to a scaled-down In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade?”

Young added, “Who is erect­ing this struc­ture and for what? Is paving pro­posed, if so, why and for what? The green spaces in our beloved Sa­van­nah should not be de­stroyed and des­e­crat­ed. What is tak­ing place?”

It was lat­er con­firmed by sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that the work is in­deed re­lat­ed to a venue for the In­de­pen­dence Day event. They as­sured that the new area will have space for mem­bers of the pub­lic who usu­al­ly at­tend the event.

Se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor mem­bers al­so as­sured (as did Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials) that the armed forces’ usu­al pa­rade route, af­ter the ear­ly morn­ing for­mal­i­ties, will be staged as in pre­vi­ous pa­rades.

Units with equip­ment dis­plays plus mount­ed and mo­tor­cy­cle mem­bers had al­ways made their way from the Sa­van­nah in­to Wood­brook along Tra­garete Road to the Po­lice Bar­racks, St James, fol­low­ing past pa­rades. Spec­ta­tors have al­ways lined the route, cheer­ing troops.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said fire­works are al­so ex­pect­ed on In­de­pen­dence night—but didn’t say where. The ad­min­is­tra­tion passed a law in 2025 reg­u­lat­ing fire­work use via per­mits. Ex­emp­tions were giv­en: be­tween 8-9 pm on pub­lic hol­i­days and 11.30–12.30 am on De­cem­ber 31. Fire­works won’t be al­lowed near zoos, se­niors’ homes and oth­er lo­ca­tions.

$$$ saver rea­son

UNC shad­ow MP for PoS North, Alexan­der, said from what he un­der­stands, the change of venue for the pa­rade was due to the fact that the North Stand (op­po­site the Grand Stand) was still up, which means it is in the po­si­tion where troops would have to con­gre­gate if it were held there.

Alexan­der said, “Re­mov­ing the pa­rade to the north­ern side of the sa­van­nah will save mil­lions which would have or­di­nar­i­ly been spent on dis­man­tling/re­mov­ing the North Stand to ac­com­mo­date the pa­rade. It’s al­so be­ing re­lo­cat­ed to a more pic­turesque space with the sur­round­ing am­bi­ence of the Botan­ic Gar­dens, prox­im­i­ty to Pres­i­dent’s House and more shade for spec­ta­tors,” he said.

Alexan­der as­sured ac­com­mo­da­tion is be­ing made for spec­ta­tors.

“Of course! The pa­rade is for the spec­ta­tors most of all, so there’ll be some shade. It’s very hot. Res­i­dents from Bel­mont, Cas­cade, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain will be able to come and en­joy the event.”

He couldn’t say if the new lo­ca­tion will be a per­ma­nent one.

Alexan­der didn’t give project costs. In the June mid-year re­view when Sturge an­nounced the pa­rade would oc­cur, he’d sought ap­proval for a $2.3 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion to fund the cel­e­bra­tions.

Sturge didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly an­swer ques­tions on costs yes­ter­day, nor did Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram (un­der whose Min­istry the Sa­van­nah falls) or Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John.

UNC MPs had “blanked” In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade events held un­der the PNM’s tenure un­til 2024, when some UNC of­fi­cials at­tend­ed.

The full UNC cab­i­net head­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter is ex­pect­ed to at­tend the event at the new lo­ca­tion.