Couva Carnival Committee calls for full-length 2026 celebrations

Shas­tri Boodan

The Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee is call­ing on po­lice to al­low its 2026 fes­tiv­i­ties to run their full course.

Com­mit­tee chair­man Ram­c­hand Ra­jbal Maraj said of­fi­cers have de­vel­oped a habit of shut­ting down cel­e­bra­tions be­fore the sched­uled time. He spoke to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day as the Com­mit­tee launched its 2026 sea­son at the Cou­va Joy­lan­ders Pan The­atre on Rail­way Road.

“We need prop­er col­lab­o­ra­tion; we want a gen­uine part­ner­ship with law en­force­ment,” Maraj said. He not­ed that even when no in­ci­dents oc­cur, po­lice still “lock down the mas”, claim­ing they are ex­haust­ed af­ter work­ing for two days straight. “This is un­fair to the mas­quer­aders,” he added, say­ing par­tic­i­pants in­vest sig­nif­i­cant time and mon­ey to bring the event to life.

Maraj said the Com­mit­tee has bud­get­ed $480,000 for the up­com­ing Car­ni­val and be­lieves mas­quer­aders have been short-changed in pre­vi­ous years. He al­so called for greater sup­port from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

Reg­is­tra­tion is on­go­ing, and he ex­pects 15 bands to cross the stage for J’Ou­vert and around 12 for the main mas pre­sen­ta­tion.

Dane Wall of Wall Broth­ers Pro­mo­tion, win­ners of the 2024 and 2025 J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, an­nounced that their 2026 por­tray­al will be Maljoo J’Ou­vert, a blue-dev­il-themed band. “We are go­ing for the hat-trick,” he said. “We ex­pect around 900 peo­ple.”