Siparia mayor vows Borough Day celebrations will go on despite objections

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo says plans for a J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion and cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za to mark the bor­ough’s an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions will pro­ceed de­spite ob­jec­tions from PNM coun­cil­lors and a UNC al­der­man over fund­ing for mu­sic trucks and a band.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence a few days ago, Mayrhoo ac­cused op­po­si­tion mem­bers of try­ing to “sti­fle” the progress of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion ahead of the 2027 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Mayrhoo, the coun­cil is even­ly split be­tween six PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives and six UNC rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with UNC al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts sid­ing with the PNM on sev­er­al votes.

“The PNM has the votes that can pass any mo­tion in coun­cil,” Mayrhoo said. “They de­cid­ed that they were not go­ing to sup­port the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion for Siparia. They in­di­cat­ed that they are not go­ing to lend any as­sis­tance with mu­sic trucks or any fi­nan­cial sup­port for the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion.”

Mayrhoo said the month-long Bor­ough Day fes­tiv­i­ties are sched­uled to be­gin at the start of June and cul­mi­nate on June 27.

He said coun­cil­lors al­so vot­ed against the bor­ough’s an­nu­al cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za at Owen Park, which he de­scribed as a free event for res­i­dents and vis­i­tors.

“That event is free of charge for mem­bers of the pub­lic and burgess­es from the re­gion and wider Trinidad. They shut down that event as well,” he said.

Mayrhoo said he was dis­ap­point­ed by the de­ci­sion, ar­gu­ing that coun­cil­lors were elect­ed to rep­re­sent res­i­dents rather than po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests.

“When we sit in that coun­cil, we sit to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion. When you do things that are in the best in­ter­est of the burgess­es and you shoot it down, you are go­ing against the very peo­ple who put you in of­fice,” he said.

De­spite the set­back, the may­or said the cel­e­bra­tions would still take place through cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship and pri­vate fundrais­ing.

“I will lend my sup­port to the J’Ou­vert band­lead­ers. I will seek fund­ing through cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship, and I will al­so en­sure that the last-day cul­tur­al event takes place,” he said.

Mayrhoo said the com­ments came af­ter what he de­scribed as the suc­cess­ful stag­ing of a re­cent J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion host­ed by the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

He al­so crit­i­cised Roberts, ac­cus­ing him of align­ing with the PNM.

“Vic­tor Roberts has turned out to be a great dis­ap­point­ment not on­ly to the UNC but to the bor­ough. He has open­ly gone across to the PNM and sup­port­ed the PNM whether it is right, wrong or oth­er­wise,” he said.

The may­or fur­ther claimed op­po­si­tion mem­bers vot­ed against a planned staff lime as part of Bor­ough Day ac­tiv­i­ties.

“We usu­al­ly rent some tents and ta­bles and the staff come here and spend the day to­geth­er in ca­ma­raderie and fel­low­ship. You wouldn’t be­lieve they shut that down as well,” he said.

Mayrhoo added that he was pre­pared to per­son­al­ly cov­er the cost of the event.

Be­yond the dis­pute over the cel­e­bra­tions, the may­or out­lined sev­er­al de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives be­ing pur­sued by the cor­po­ra­tion, in­clud­ing re­fur­bish­ment works at the Owen Park Sport­ing Com­plex, up­grades to toi­let and seat­ing fa­cil­i­ties and a beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project around the park.

“We are go­ing to beau­ti­fy it, pave it and mod­ernise the bench­es to make it a friend­ly place where peo­ple can come and re­lax in the evenings,” he said.

Mayrhoo al­so an­nounced plans to trans­form part of the car park op­po­site the Siparia med­ical fa­cil­i­ty in­to a food hub for ven­dors and small busi­ness op­er­a­tors.

“We are en­cour­ag­ing busi­ness peo­ple to come there and in­vest in Siparia so no­body has to leave Siparia to go else­where for recre­ation and food,” he said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Roberts de­fend­ed his po­si­tion, say­ing he did not sup­port the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion pay­ing for mu­sic trucks be­cause the mat­ter was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion.

He al­so ques­tioned whether a rel­a­tive of the may­or was linked to the band pro­posed for hire for the cul­tur­al show.

Mean­while, PNM coun­cil­lor An­ton George said the par­ty with­held ap­proval for rent­ing mu­sic trucks be­cause quo­ta­tions for the ex­pen­di­ture were not pro­vid­ed.

George said the mon­ey ear­marked for the cul­tur­al show could in­stead be used to pro­vide tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment and ham­pers for res­i­dents in need.

He main­tained, how­ev­er, that the PNM sup­ports both the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion and the cul­tur­al show, not­ing that of­fi­cial Bor­ough Day ac­tiv­i­ties had al­ready been ap­proved dur­ing a Spe­cial Statu­to­ry Meet­ing.

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali, who lat­er joined the PNM, al­so crit­i­cised the pro­pos­al, ar­gu­ing that the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion should not be re­spon­si­ble for fi­nanc­ing mu­sic trucks.

Ali said band pro­mot­ers have tra­di­tion­al­ly been re­spon­si­ble for se­cur­ing fund­ing for their own trucks dur­ing J’Ou­vert com­pe­ti­tions.