Minister instructs CDA to create spaces for Carnival fetes

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, Kennedy Swarats­ingh, says he has in­struct­ed the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) to work with the Min­istry of Cul­ture to cre­ate spaces where fetes can be held. Swarats­ingh al­so holds the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the en­vi­ron­ment. He made the com­ments in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at COP30 yes­ter­day in Belem, Brazil, a day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pand­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s clam­p­down on noise pol­lu­tion, or­der­ing an im­me­di­ate halt to fetes at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and the Jean Pierre Com­plex ex­cept dur­ing the de­fined Car­ni­val win­dow.

Swarats­ingh said, “I have ac­tu­al­ly asked the chair of Cha­gara­mas to work with the Min­istry of Cul­ture to see if we can cre­ate some space, and I’m sure the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture is ex­plor­ing oth­er op­tions as well, be­cause the in­ten­tion is not to pun­ish any­body, but to find the right spaces where they can have the events un­fet­tered. It’s find­ing that bal­ance in that. I think that’s what the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pects of us, that we as min­is­ters will find ways in sup­port of the de­ci­sions that the Cab­i­net has ex­pressed and the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pressed.”

He said he is con­fi­dent the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture “is ful­ly em­pow­ered and equipped” to come up with some new strate­gies.

Last week, the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced a ban on fetes at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my and sig­nalled her in­ten­tion to clamp down on noise pol­lu­tion.

While res­i­dents in some ar­eas have wel­comed the move, stake­hold­ers in the Car­ni­val and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­tries are un­hap­py with the move.

Swarats­ingh laud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter for mak­ing “tough de­ci­sions.” He added, “Just as we have a right to fete and what­ev­er else, oth­er peo­ple have a right to live in a cer­tain lev­el of less dis­tress.” He said it was the lat­est in a se­ries of ma­jor de­ci­sions the Per­sad-Bisses­sar has stood firm on.

He al­so backed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance with the Unit­ed States’ war on nar­co-ter­ror­ists in the South­ern Caribbean Sea. Swarats­ingh said, “We have spent, and I checked it re­cent­ly, over $77 bil­lion in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty from 2008 or 2009 till now. We still were not able to con­trol mur­ders and gangs. This is a prob­lem that is big­ger than us. The Prime Min­is­ter has said that she loves Venezuela. In my re­spect­ful view, the Prime Min­is­ter is in charge of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty for Cari­com and has an oblig­a­tion to make sure that not just Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T), but the rest of Cari­com, that we push that drug and we push all of those harm­ful things com­ing out of the South Amer­i­can con­ti­nent as far down as we can. Get it out of our space.”

Swarats­ingh wrapped up a two-day trip to COP30 yes­ter­day, where he de­liv­ered T&T’s na­tion­al state­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence. He will re­turn home to­day.