RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo says he in­tends to press ahead with plans to host a J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion and cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za for the bor­ough’s an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions in June, de­spite op­po­si­tion from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lors and a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) al­der­man who vot­ed against fund­ing mu­sic trucks and a band for the events.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence last week, Mayrhoo ac­cused op­po­si­tion mem­bers of at­tempt­ing to “sti­fle” the progress of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion through po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring ahead of the 2027 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Mayrhoo, the coun­cil is even­ly split be­tween six PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives and six UNC rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with UNC al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts sid­ing with the PNM on sev­er­al key votes.

“The PNM has the votes that can pass any mo­tion in coun­cil,” Mayrhoo said. “They de­cid­ed that they were not go­ing to sup­port the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion for Siparia. They in­di­cat­ed that they are not go­ing to lend any as­sis­tance with mu­sic trucks or any fi­nan­cial sup­port for the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion.”

He said coun­cil­lors al­so vot­ed against the bor­ough’s an­nu­al cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za at Ir­win Park, an event he de­scribed as free and open to res­i­dents across the re­gion.

Mayrhoo said he was dis­ap­point­ed by the de­ci­sion, ar­gu­ing that coun­cil­lors were elect­ed to serve the in­ter­ests of res­i­dents rather than po­lit­i­cal agen­das.

De­spite the set­back, Mayrhoo said the events would still take place through cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship and pri­vate fundrais­ing ini­tia­tives.

“I will lend my sup­port to the J’Ou­vert band­lead­ers. I will seek fund­ing through cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship, and I will al­so en­sure that the last-day cul­tur­al event takes place,” he said.

His com­ments came on the heels of what he de­scribed as the suc­cess­ful stag­ing of a re­cent J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion host­ed by the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Mayrhoo al­so ac­cused Roberts of un­der­min­ing the cor­po­ra­tion and align­ing him­self with the PNM.

“Vic­tor Roberts has turned out to be a great dis­ap­point­ment not on­ly to the UNC but to the bor­ough. He has open­ly gone across to the PNM and sup­port­ed the PNM whether it is right, wrong or oth­er­wise,” he said.

Mayrhoo added that he was pre­pared to per­son­al­ly bear the cost of the event to en­sure it pro­ceeds.

Be­yond the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the cel­e­bra­tions, the may­or out­lined sev­er­al de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives be­ing pur­sued by the cor­po­ra­tion. These in­clude re­fur­bish­ing the Ir­win Park Sport­ing Com­plex, up­grad­ing toi­let and seat­ing fa­cil­i­ties, and im­ple­ment­ing a beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project around the park.

Mayrhoo al­so an­nounced plans to trans­form part of the carpark op­po­site the Siparia med­ical fa­cil­i­ty in­to a food hub for small busi­ness op­er­a­tors and ven­dors.

In­sist­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion would con­tin­ue func­tion­ing de­spite po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ments, Mayrhoo said the ad­min­is­tra­tion re­mained com­mit­ted to serv­ing res­i­dents.

“We are not go­ing to sit idly by and let the PNM stymie this cor­po­ra­tion and sti­fle the progress of this cor­po­ra­tion. We will con­tin­ue to work on be­half of the peo­ple we were elect­ed to serve,” he said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Roberts de­fend­ed his po­si­tion, say­ing he did not sup­port the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion pay­ing for mu­sic trucks be­cause the mat­ter was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

He al­so ques­tioned whether a rel­a­tive of the may­or was as­so­ci­at­ed with the band pro­posed for hire for the cul­tur­al show.

Mean­while, PNM coun­cil­lor An­ton George said the par­ty with­held ap­proval for rent­ing mu­sic trucks be­cause the may­or failed to pro­vide quo­ta­tions for the ex­pen­di­ture.

George said the mon­ey ear­marked for the cul­tur­al show could in­stead be used to pro­vide tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and ham­pers for res­i­dents in need.

He main­tained, how­ev­er, that the PNM sup­ports both the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion and the cul­tur­al show, not­ing that all of­fi­cial Bor­ough Day ac­tiv­i­ties had al­ready been ap­proved dur­ing a Spe­cial Statu­to­ry Meet­ing.

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali, who crossed the floor to the PNM, al­so weighed in on the dis­pute, ar­gu­ing that the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion should not be re­spon­si­ble for fi­nanc­ing mu­sic trucks.

Ali said it has tra­di­tion­al­ly been the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of band pro­mot­ers to se­cure fund­ing for their own trucks dur­ing J’Ou­vert com­pe­ti­tions.