Government spent $1.3 million on Sparrow’s farewell

The Gov­ern­ment spent $1.3 mil­lion on the fu­ner­al arrange­ments and of­fi­cial farewell for leg­endary ca­lyp­son­ian Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co, bet­ter known as the Mighty Spar­row.

Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin dis­closed the fig­ure in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, ex­plain­ing that the ex­pen­di­ture cov­ered arrange­ments for the na­tion­al icon's fi­nal farewell on Oc­to­ber 16.

Ben­jamin said the Gov­ern­ment, un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, had been in­struct­ed from the out­set to en­sure that the wish­es of Spar­row's fam­i­ly were re­spect­ed.

She said two pri­or­i­ties guid­ed the Gov­ern­ment's in­volve­ment: en­sur­ing the coun­try was pre­pared to re­ceive Spar­row's body up­on its re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and or­gan­is­ing a fit­ting farewell for the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed ca­lyp­son­ian.

"The oth­er ex­er­cise was to make sure that we gave him a send-home, a farewell, a cel­e­bra­tion of his life that is wor­thy of the Mighty Spar­row," Ben­jamin told the House.

"And the Gov­ern­ment in that ex­er­cise would have spent $1.3 mil­lion."

The Min­is­ter ex­plained that the ex­pen­di­ture cov­ered the fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion from In­de­pen­dence Square in Port of Spain to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA).

She al­so con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment as­sist­ed with bring­ing Spar­row's body back to Trinidad and To­ba­go, al­though she did not pro­vide a sep­a­rate break­down of that cost.

Ben­jamin high­light­ed the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in the farewell, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pres­ence of school­child­ren who lined the route to pay their re­spects to the cul­tur­al icon.

She thanked the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, vol­un­teers, mar­shals and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als who helped or­gan­ise the event.

The dis­clo­sure fol­lows the Gov­ern­ment's an­nounce­ment that the Grand Stand at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah would be re­named in Spar­row's ho­n­our, recog­nis­ing his ex­tra­or­di­nary con­tri­bu­tion to ca­lyp­so and Trinidad and To­ba­go's cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.