KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite a lack of Gov­ern­ment sup­port for the 2026 Point Fortin Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, May­or Clyde James says the fes­tiv­i­ties will go on as he awaits a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen on Tues­day.

James told the Sun­day Guardian that no State of­fi­cial has con­tact­ed the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion since it is­sued a state­ment on Thurs­day high­light­ing a fund­ing short­fall for the an­nu­al two-week cel­e­bra­tion mark­ing Point Fortin’s el­e­va­tion to bor­ough sta­tus.

“Since the re­lease, no­body has con­tact­ed us. I have been try­ing to reach out to them, but have not re­ceived any re­sponse. I am wait­ing to see what hap­pens on Tues­day morn­ing when I meet with the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment to deal with some of the is­sues,” James said.

In a video post­ed last Thurs­day, the may­or said the Cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ues to face fi­nan­cial chal­lenges af­ter los­ing its main spon­sor, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, which with­drew its sup­port fol­low­ing last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion. He said the move left the cor­po­ra­tion with a $300,000 debt, some of which has since been re­duced, but not­ed that the fi­nan­cial strain re­mains.

James al­so point­ed out that al­though Bor­ough Day was de­clared a na­tion­al fes­ti­val last year, the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived just $76,000 in its 2026 bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for the cel­e­bra­tions. He said let­ters were sent to sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing Cul­ture, Tourism, and Sport and Youth Af­fairs, but up to yes­ter­day, no re­spons­es had been re­ceived.

De­spite the chal­lenges, James said the event will pro­ceed with the launch sched­uled for April 11, fol­lowed by a church ser­vice at the Point Fortin Open Bible Church on April 12. He added that in re­cent days, sev­er­al cor­po­rate en­ti­ties have reached out, pledg­ing sup­port to as­sist in stag­ing the events.

James said he is al­so ex­pect­ed to meet with Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar to dis­cuss the mat­ter. Ke­sar said he would re­spond to the con­cerns raised on Mon­day.

Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin, when con­tact­ed, re­quest­ed that ques­tions be sent via What­sApp. How­ev­er, up to press time, no re­sponse was re­ceived.