Benjamin defends San Fernando Carnival cuts

Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin has de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to cut fund­ing for San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val 2026, say­ing the Min­istry and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) re­mains ready to sup­port the fes­ti­val.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at UNC head­quar­ters to­day, Ben­jamin said pub­lic state­ments by San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris about scal­ing back Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties had con­tributed to con­fu­sion about fund­ing.

“I re­call an ar­ti­cle, I think this Jan­u­ary 22nd […] stat­ing that the May­or said that he’s not hav­ing a launch,” Ben­jamin said. “So, giv­en that the May­or would have said that in the pub­lic do­main, for him to now come and say that he does not have suf­fi­cient fund­ing, I don’t un­der­stand.”

She said San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val had con­sis­tent­ly re­ceived $700,000 in fund­ing over the past three years and ar­gued that the May­or’s com­ments about cut­backs were in­ter­pret­ed as an in­di­ca­tion that less fund­ing was re­quired.

“You can­not be get­ting the same fund­ing and scal­ing back your ac­tiv­i­ty,” Ben­jamin said.

Ben­jamin said she re­quest­ed a meet­ing with Par­ris and stressed that the Min­istry and NCC were pre­pared to as­sist.

Her com­ments fol­lowed the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend the com­pet­i­tive com­po­nent of Car­ni­val 2026, cit­ing re­duced fund­ing and ris­ing costs. Ben­jamin main­tained that judg­ing could still pro­ceed through NCC re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tors, even with­out the City Cor­po­ra­tion’s in­volve­ment.

In re­sponse, the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee said it will hold a press con­fer­ence to ad­dress what it de­scribed as mis­state­ments and pub­lic com­ments made by the Min­is­ter. In a me­dia re­lease, the com­mit­tee said it will pro­vide ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion, ad­dress con­cerns raised, out­line de­ci­sions tak­en, and ex­plain the way for­ward to en­sure trans­paren­cy and prop­er pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of mat­ters af­fect­ing Car­ni­val plan­ning, band par­tic­i­pa­tion and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment.