Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC), is re­fut­ing al­le­ga­tions by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) that the cor­po­ra­tion has spent mil­lions of tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars to host an ex­trav­a­gant In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tion for Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) elites at Ed­die Hart Grounds in Tacarigua.

Josi­ah Austin de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions raised in a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia by Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Anil Roberts, as ut­ter mis­chief and pro­pa­gan­da.

In a three-and-a-half-minute video, Roberts showed prepa­ra­tions were in full swing by the TPRC to host what he called a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar event.

The event was held yes­ter­day evening.

Roberts stat­ed that the TPRC has “gone out to ex­pend mil­lions of dol­lars here for a cel­e­bra­tion... lots of ex­pen­di­ture for PNM VIPs spent with your tax­pay­er mon­ey.”

The video showed a huge stage dec­o­rat­ed in red, white, and black strips of cloth, nu­mer­ous tents, stage lights, gen­er­a­tors, portable toi­lets, wa­ter tanks, and a se­cu­ri­ty fence.

Roberts said he could not un­der­stand why the TPRC was stag­ing the event when the UNC Gov­ern­ment saw it fit to can­cel the coun­try’s 63rd In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade in Port-of-Spain due to the height­ened threat to gov­ern­ment and ju­di­cial of­fi­cials dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

While the UNC had opt­ed to host a day of fast­ing, prayers, and to­geth­er­ness, and Gov­ern­ment MPs and Sen­a­tors were ar­rang­ing book dri­ves for less for­tu­nate chil­dren, Roberts said, the PNM was on a spend­ing spree with tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars.

“This is what the PNM is do­ing. This is where your tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars that is still in the hands of the PNM is be­ing spent. Are they al­so go­ing to have fire­works there?” Roberts asked.

He said if one were to fol­low for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s the­o­ry that the coun­try is bank­rupt, “Is this the cor­rect sort of ex­pen­di­ture that you would want?”

Re­spond­ing to Roberts, Austin in­sist­ed the cel­e­bra­tion was “heav­i­ly spon­sored.”

He as­sured that the TPRC’s “ex­pen­di­ture is way less than the spon­sor­ship.”

These spon­sor­ships fos­ter part­ner­ships with the pri­vate sec­tor and TPRC.

The TPRC had ad­ver­tised this year’s cel­e­bra­tions as a cul­tur­al show­case to ho­n­our the na­tion’s in­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary.

Among the line-up of per­form­ers were Farmer Nap­py, Preedy, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, Adesh Sama­roo, Tem­per­a­ture the Band, Shiv Shak­ti Dance Com­pa­ny, Sean Daniel, NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders Steel Or­ches­tra, and the North-West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment.

“We don’t have mil­lions of dol­lars... we are a cor­po­ra­tion. Know­ing the TPRC is host­ing and then say­ing the PNM is hav­ing a show and us­ing tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars is just an at­tempt to dis­tract the cit­i­zen­ry.”

“No cor­po­ra­tion has mil­lions of dol­lars to spend on this... not even a mil­lion,” Austin said.

Un­able to say how much the TPRC had pumped in­to this show, Austin, in a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, wrote, “Just know it’s noth­ing ex­or­bi­tant. Last year, we had the same set­up. We are do­ing this at the low­est bud­get while en­gag­ing sev­er­al un­em­ployed for­mer CEPEP work­ers for clean-up.”

He said Roberts con­tin­u­ous­ly at­tacked the cor­po­ra­tion be­cause most of its coun­cil­lors were all PNM mem­bers.

Last year, Austin said, Roberts post­ed a video of the grounds where they host­ed their event.

“And this year he’s do­ing this video filled with lies be­cause it just seems like he’s shocked we can pull off some­thing of this mag­ni­tude. Every year around this time, he will show up. We just have to leave him to ram­ble. The UNC is def­i­nite­ly try­ing to cre­ate mis­chief and pro­pa­gan­da through this in­di­vid­ual, as he did last year.”

Austin said the TPRC’s 20 coun­cil­lors (both PNM and UNC) had been dis­trib­ut­ing school book vouch­ers to the most vul­ner­a­ble in their elec­toral dis­tricts.

He al­so dis­closed that the TPRC had not been re­ceiv­ing re­leas­es of funds in a time­ly fash­ion.

“It’s very slow, and we have been us­ing a lot of pub­lic/pri­vate part­ner­ships to car­ry us through dai­ly.”

A What­sApp mes­sage was sent to Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen yes­ter­day, but she did not re­spond.