Tension as MP unveils Borough Fusion ahead of Borough Day launch

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Tas­sa, iron and melody rang out at Clifton Hill Beach yes­ter­day, as Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar launched Point Fortin Bor­ough Fu­sion, al­though the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion is yet to launch the of­fi­cial Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions.

De­spite the Fu­sion sit­ting out­side the cor­po­ra­tion’s an­nu­al pro­gramme, Ke­sar said the ac­tiv­i­ty, which mir­rors the Fla­va Vil­lage held in Port-of-Spain dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, is not in­tend­ed to com­pete with of­fi­cial Bor­ough Day ac­tiv­i­ties but to en­hance them.

The launch, held at The Pavil­ion, drew spon­sors and stake­hold­ers in a fes­tive set­ting, though there was a no­table ab­sence of May­or Clyde James and mem­bers of the bor­ough coun­cil. The ab­sence comes against the back­drop of on­go­ing con­cerns about fund­ing for Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

Last week, James pub­licly high­light­ed what he de­scribed as a sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial strain on the cor­po­ra­tion, in­clud­ing debt of up to $300,000. He said al­though some ar­rears had been re­duced, the cor­po­ra­tion had on­ly been al­lo­cat­ed $76,000 for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions, with ad­di­tion­al re­quests to min­istries for sup­port ig­nored. He al­so said Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, a key op­er­a­tor in the bor­ough, had de­clined spon­sor­ship.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ke­sar said the coun­cil was un­able to at­tend the launch due to meet­ings at the Town Hall, adding the event was or­gan­ised at short no­tice. He said he had in­formed James of the ini­tia­tive in ad­vance, but did not pro­vide de­tails at the time. Not­ing some crit­i­cism ahead of the Fu­sion launch, Ke­sar main­tained that it re­mains a sep­a­rate project, not­ing that any in­cor­po­ra­tion in­to the cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fi­cial pro­gramme would re­quire coun­cil ap­proval.

“I told him that I would be do­ing an event that would en­hance the Bor­ough Day. I told him that it was a top-se­cret project, but at that time, I did not se­cure my spon­sors. Now we have done that be­cause I am very care­ful in do­ing things that do not af­fect. I know the pol­i­tics are high. As I said in my live re­cent­ly, I am no longer go­ing to be com­ment­ing. I just want Bor­ough Day to come off,” Ke­sar said.

He said he in­tends to send a let­ter to James re­quest­ing a fol­low-up meet­ing aimed at ex­plor­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion. Ke­sar main­tained that Bor­ough Fu­sion would not in­ter­fere with any of the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion’s planned ac­tiv­i­ties or those of in­de­pen­dent pro­mot­ers.

He said Bor­ough Fu­sion draws in­spi­ra­tion from large-scale en­ter­tain­ment vil­lage con­cepts while al­so re­viv­ing el­e­ments of ear­li­er street fes­ti­val cul­ture in Point Fortin. The aim, he said, is to merge both ap­proach­es in­to a lo­cal­ly ground­ed cul­tur­al plat­form.

The ini­tia­tive will run from April 25 to May 1 along a des­ig­nat­ed stretch be­tween Kalloo Road and the An­gli­can Church, fea­tur­ing lo­cal ven­dors in food, craft and cloth­ing drawn from with­in Point Fortin. Day­time ac­tiv­i­ty will fo­cus on vend­ing, while evenings will fea­ture free open-air con­certs show­cas­ing es­tab­lished and emerg­ing lo­cal per­form­ers.

Ke­sar said he has not yet re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion to the cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fi­cial launch and church ser­vice, but looks for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing when in­vit­ed.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, James con­firmed the coun­cil held a meet­ing ear­li­er in the day. He said he had not yet re­viewed the Bor­ough Fu­sion sched­ule and could not com­ment on whether it cre­ates any con­flict. He said the Bor­ough Day launch will pro­ceed to­mor­row, fol­lowed by a church ser­vice on Sun­day.

He al­so not­ed that while a full cal­en­dar of events is still to be pub­lished, the cor­po­ra­tion will air its Women’s Sym­po­sium on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion for Moth­er’s Day. James said he re­cent­ly met with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen to dis­cuss fund­ing mat­ters.

Com­ment­ing on the wider fund­ing de­bate yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son said Bor­ough Day fund­ing has be­come part of a broad­er na­tion­al is­sue af­fect­ing cul­tur­al al­lo­ca­tions. She point­ed to ma­jor spend­ing on Fla­va Vil­lage, which ex­ceed­ed $16 mil­lion, in­clud­ing $1.4 mil­lion for pro­mo­tion, $725,000 for se­cu­ri­ty, and $172,000 for short-term em­ploy­ment.

“Point Fortin Bor­ough Fu­sion 2026 is list­ed un­der the aus­pices of the mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Point Fortin, whilst the may­or and coun­cil have writ­ten to sev­er­al min­istries, whether it is sport, whether it is tourism, not an ac­knowl­edge­ment. The event pro­motes six nights of free live per­for­mances from April 25 to May 2, fea­tur­ing top artistes and en­ter­tain­ers, so you have to ask your­self, is it sound­ing like Fla­va go­ing to Point?”

She said Bor­ough Day con­tin­ues to face fi­nan­cial pres­sure de­spite its sta­tus as a na­tion­al fes­ti­val, ar­gu­ing that tra­di­tion­al sup­port chan­nels to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions have been re­duced.