PNM urges Govt to rethink its non-support of Nagar

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tors Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­think its non-sup­port of this year’s Di­vali Na­gar, while chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing the sud­den with­draw­al of state spon­sor­ship, warn­ing that the de­ci­sion could cre­ate the per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal re­tal­i­a­tion against cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi ques­tioned the tim­ing of the spon­sor­ship with­drawals, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the prox­im­i­ty to the start of the cel­e­bra­tions.

He said, “A week be­fore the Di­vali Na­gar re­al­ly hap­pens, you have a host of state en­ti­ties just with­draw­ing. That sort of puts you on­to the pre­car­i­ous cliff of what’s go­ing to hap­pen next.”

Al-Rawi, who dis­closed that he is al­so an at­tor­ney for Blue Wa­ters, de­fend­ed the com­pa­ny’s in­creased spon­sor­ship, stress­ing its years-long sup­port for the event.

“I can tell you as an at­tor­ney at law for Blue Wa­ters that they have spon­sored that event for a very, very, very long time. Their spon­sor­ship would be seen year to year. Step­ping in­to the breach of a co­or­di­nat­ed with­draw­al of sup­port to a na­tion­al event is just a mat­ter of fact,” Al-Rawi said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that Gov­ern­ments must bal­ance ex­pen­di­ture and en­sure fair­ness in the al­lo­ca­tion of pub­lic funds, Al-Rawi said or­gan­is­ers should be giv­en ad­e­quate no­tice of changes to fi­nan­cial sup­port.

He al­so point­ed to the long­stand­ing role of the State in sup­port­ing re­li­gious and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, not­ing that fund­ing has tra­di­tion­al­ly been avail­able through the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

He added, “The is­sue of the tim­ing of all of these events of with­draw­al at the same time puts a lot of ques­tion marks in­to the equa­tion as to what you could fore­see an event col­lapse would look like.”

Al­so speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment, Cum­mings in­sist­ed that Di­vali Na­gar should not be­come a po­lit­i­cal bat­tle­ground.

“I mean, we have vis­it­ed the Di­vali Na­gar for sev­er­al years, while in gov­ern­ment and now while in op­po­si­tion. It is not some­thing to politi­cise. It is a na­tion­al fes­ti­val that we all look for­ward to. Even those of us who are not of the Hin­du re­li­gion, we look for­ward to go­ing to the Di­vali Na­gar. Now, it’s a na­tion­al fes­ti­val and there­fore politi­cians should not seek to politi­cise it and the State should give sup­port to the Di­vali Na­gar,”

Cum­mings al­so linked Blue Wa­ters’ in­creased spon­sor­ship to the with­draw­al of State fund­ing.

He added, “The on­ly rea­son that Blue Wa­ters had to up­grade their spon­sor­ship, from what I have read, is be­cause of the co­or­di­nat­ed with­draw­al of state sup­port from the fes­ti­val.”

Mean­while, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments about the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), de­scrib­ing them as “reck­less and un­for­tu­nate.”

Gon­za­les said the tim­ing and cir­cum­stances of the spon­sor­ship with­drawals raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about whether State re­sources were be­ing used to pun­ish cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions that did not find favour with the Gov­ern­ment.

He said, “I strong­ly con­demn the reck­less and un­for­tu­nate state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­cern­ing the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing this sa­cred pe­ri­od when our na­tion should be cel­e­brat­ing peace, good­will, re­li­gious tol­er­ance and na­tion­al uni­ty,” he said.

“The Prime Min­is­ter oc­cu­pies the high­est po­lit­i­cal of­fice in our coun­try, and with that of­fice comes a solemn re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­mote har­mo­ny, ex­er­cise re­straint and re­spect the in­de­pen­dence of our re­li­gious and cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions. Her state­ments, cou­pled with the sud­den with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship by state en­ter­pris­es from the NCIC’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, raise se­ri­ous con­cerns about the ap­par­ent vin­dic­tive­ness sur­round­ing these de­ci­sions. The tim­ing and cir­cum­stances cre­ate a trou­bling per­cep­tion that state re­sources may be used to pun­ish cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions that do not find favour with those hold­ing po­lit­i­cal pow­er.”

The po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ment fol­lows re­marks from Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who de­scribed Blue Wa­ters’ Di­a­mond spon­sor­ship as “hi­lar­i­ous,” cit­ing the con­tro­ver­sy over deroga­to­ry re­marks about In­do-Trinida­di­ans made by Blue Wa­ters own­er Do­minic Hadeed’s rel­a­tive Star Sab­ga.

The Prime Min­is­ter claimed that NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo had been “duped” in­to pub­licly an­nounc­ing the com­pa­ny’s en­hanced spon­sor­ship. She has al­so de­fend­ed the with­draw­al of fi­nan­cial sup­port by State en­ter­pris­es, ar­gu­ing that sim­i­lar re­duc­tions had af­fect­ed oth­er cul­tur­al and re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions, in­clud­ing Car­ni­val, Bap­tist Day, In­de­pen­dence and Eman­ci­pa­tion events. The PM main­tained that tax­pay­er funds should be pri­ori­tised for salaries, pen­sions, med­ica­tion and out­stand­ing pay­ments to work­ers rather than spon­sor­ship of pri­vate events.

How­ev­er, al­so speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der dou­bled down on Gov­ern­ment’s claim that Blue Wa­ters’ in­creased spon­sor­ship was a “stunt.”

“I mean, I un­der­stand Do­minic Hadeed and his stunt, but this is not a time or a thing for games and play­ing. So, it’s be­ing ad­dressed at the lev­el where it needs to be ad­dressed. I see peo­ple are leav­ing in droves and go­ing in oth­er di­rec­tions. The per­sons in charge in Na­gar need to get a house in or­der and I will leave that up to them and who they have to deal with to get that done,” he said.