MP brushes off funding issues as scaled down Borough Day festival kicks off

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

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“What is Bor­ough Day with­out a lit­tle bac­cha­nal?” Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar re­marked on the back-and-forth be­tween him­self and Point Fortin May­or Clyde James over fund­ing for Point Fortin Bor­ough Day 2026.

Both men shook hands as they greet­ed each oth­er at Fri­day’s mil­i­tary pa­rade in the heart of the bor­ough, which saw crowds of res­i­dents lin­ing the streets for the an­nu­al spec­ta­cle. Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists, Ke­sar in­vit­ed T&T, the Caribbean and the world to vis­it Point Fortin for the fes­tiv­i­ties, say­ing the cel­e­bra­tions had al­ready start­ed and were go­ing to be “epic.”

He stressed that de­spite re­cent ten­sions over fund­ing, co­op­er­a­tion re­mained nec­es­sary be­tween him­self and the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion.

“I am say­ing we have to do what we have to do, both par­ties. The Bor­ough Day is un­der the aus­pices of the may­or and his coun­cil. I re­spect that, but at the end of the day, I am a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, du­ly elect­ed by the elec­tions of April 28, 2025, and I am al­ways for co­op­er­a­tion. You know where I came from. I al­ways like to op­er­ate in good faith,” Ke­sar said.

The host­ing of the na­tion­al fes­ti­val be­came un­cer­tain last month when James re­vealed via a Face­book Live brief­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion faced fi­nan­cial chal­lenges af­ter los­ing its main spon­sor, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, which with­drew its sup­port fol­low­ing last year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He said the with­draw­al left the cor­po­ra­tion with a $300,000 debt, some of which has since been re­duced, but not­ed that fi­nan­cial strain re­mains.

James al­so point­ed out that al­though Bor­ough Day was de­clared a na­tion­al fes­ti­val last year, the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived just $76,000 in its 2026 bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for the cel­e­bra­tions. He said let­ters were sent to sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing Cul­ture, Tourism, Sport and Youth Af­fairs, but there were no re­spons­es.

Asked about ad­di­tion­al fund­ing re­quest­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion, Ke­sar said he pre­ferred not to speak about it at this time. He said he had used avail­able re­sources and per­son­al in­flu­ence to se­cure pri­vate sec­tor sup­port for the cel­e­bra­tions, and added that he would speak fur­ther af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties.

While there was some con­tention over Ke­sar stag­ing his own event, the Point Fortin Bor­ough Fu­sion, which be­gan over the week­end and runs un­til Thurs­day, he said feed­back had been pos­i­tive, and he ex­pect­ed strong at­ten­dance. He thanked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, his par­lia­men­tary col­leagues and spon­sors, say­ing he re­mained fo­cused de­spite on­go­ing dis­trac­tions. Ke­sar said there was still sig­nif­i­cant work to be done in Point Fortin.

“I re­al­ly can­not get in­volved in all the small talk and bac­cha­nal. I do not have time for that. I have to stay fo­cused.”

James said the Mil­i­tary Pa­rade crowd re­flect­ed the same lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion seen in pre­vi­ous years, de­scrib­ing it as a key high­light of the bor­ough’s cel­e­bra­tions. He said the coun­cil was pleased to have suc­cess­ful­ly staged the event de­spite fi­nan­cial con­straints.

“We are re­silient peo­ple. We make it hap­pen.”

He ac­knowl­edged on­go­ing fi­nan­cial chal­lenges but said ef­forts to man­age fund­ing pres­sures were con­tin­u­ing as the pro­gramme pro­gressed.

“Yes, it is, but we will al­ways have chal­lenges. Nev­er­the­less, we are go­ing to make Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions a great one as it is so far.”

The Icons in the Sun event, which would have fol­lowed the pa­rade, was can­celled due to cir­cum­stances be­yond the cor­po­ra­tion’s con­trol. How­ev­er, all oth­er events re­main on sched­ule this week.