Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Even as the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works show have been can­celled, Pan on Dhe Av­enue will go ahead as planned on Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Port-of-Spain.

The an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment was con­firmed by both or­gan­is­er Ayan­na Gar­cia and Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore.

Ram­sey-Moore said she had been in touch with the or­gan­is­ers and there was no change to the sched­ule.

“As far as I know, plans are go­ing ahead with the event. Up to last night (Sun­day), I was in con­tact with the chair­man of that board, Ayan­na Gar­cia, as you know, that group is in­de­pen­dent from Pan Trin­ba­go, but we do col­lab­o­rate with that. But as far as I know, the event is on,” she said.

Gar­cia, chair­per­son of the Wood­brook/St James Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so con­firmed the event is still set for In­de­pen­dence night.

“Yes, it will con­tin­ue as nor­mal on In­de­pen­dence Day. We are col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pan Trin­ba­go and the City of Port-of-Spain and mak­ing it a grand clos­ing of Steel­pan month and In­de­pen­dence Day,” she said.

She ex­plained that the event, orig­i­nal­ly set for Au­gust 30, was shift­ed by re­quest.

“Yes, it was the 30th. And then we made the switch by pop­u­lar de­mand and rec­om­men­da­tion,” Gar­cia said.

The show is ded­i­cat­ed each year to her late fa­ther, Cleve­land Gar­cia, for­mer coun­cil­lor for Wood­brook and past chair­per­son of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment had pulled spon­sor­ship for this year’s event, Gar­cia said there was no such in­di­ca­tion.

“This is not ac­cu­rate. We have no word about not get­ting fund­ing,” she said.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin was asked if her min­istry would still co-spon­sor the event in light of the pa­rade’s can­cel­la­tion. She has not re­spond­ed to re­quests for com­ment.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne al­so said prepa­ra­tions were un­der­way.

“Prepa­ra­tions for Pan On D Av­enue are mov­ing for­ward nice­ly. We are invit­ing all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to join us on Ari­api­ta Av­enue at 6 pm to cel­e­brate our In­de­pen­dence with our Na­tion­al In­stru­ment,” he said.

The In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade and State fire­works were can­celled on Fri­day due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said.

They said in­tel­li­gence ad­vised against gath­er­ing top state of­fi­cials, ju­di­cia­ry, De­fence Force, and po­lice in one place, cit­ing risk de­spite Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s state­ment that an “im­mi­nent threat” was neu­tralised.

Ho­sein said sav­ings from the can­celled events would aid the crime fight.