An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

“Are we beg­gars?”

Chal­leng­ing Cul­ture Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell to an­swer this ques­tion yes­ter­day, as she said they had not ap­plied for any fund­ing this year, Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke said the measly of­fer from the Gov­ern­ment of $30,000 to host 2025 Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in Mau­si­ca was too lit­tle and in­sult­ing.

“I did not ap­ply for one red cent,” Burke said dur­ing ob­ser­vances at the Em­pow­er­ment Hall on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way.

“They ask­ing you one set of ques­tions over and over, and on­ly giv­ing you $30,000.”

Telling them “to keep yuh $30,000,” Burke said her fac­tion had man­aged to pull off their cel­e­bra­tions through God’s bless­ings.

Look­ing ahead, she said, “I will show you how God will bless us.”

Ad­mit­ting this was the first year she had not ap­plied for State fund­ing, Burke re­vealed, “Last year, they give $40,000. What hap­pen? Are we beg­gars?”

She was crit­i­cal of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, as she said, “He is the first Prime Min­is­ter do that.”

Arch­bish­op Myr­tle Bris­tol, who heads the Mary­land, US fac­tion, chimed in, “Why should one arch­dio­cese get mil­lions and the woman who is re­spon­si­ble for the hol­i­day...they didn’t want it and she fought for it and got it, and it is like she doesn’t ex­ist?”

Point­ing to the plans Burke had on the ta­ble, Bris­tol said, “She can prove where the mon­ey is go­ing.”

Bris­tol con­tin­ued, “We know how much mon­ey they have got­ten over the years and they have noth­ing to show for it.”

Burke said the fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion was con­firmed to them af­ter they filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest, which Bris­tol said showed the Burke-led fac­tion had re­ceived $40,000 while an­oth­er fac­tion re­ceived over $300,000.

Shak­ing the maracs clasped in her right hand, Burke said, “God not bless­ing the mon­ey.”

In­di­cat­ing she will con­tin­ue to en­joy God’s bless­ings as she marched to­wards open­ing a home for the aged by May, Burke said, “We start­ed build­ing the place. We used to let the Vin­cen­tians stay in it, the Bar­ba­di­ans, when they come down and all these dif­fer­ent peo­ple, but we pre­pared now that we eh do­ing that again.”

She added, “We promised the el­der­ly that we would have built them a home for the aged and we are stick­ing to our promise.”

Con­struc­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty is al­ready un­der­way next to the church, she said.

While Burke was com­plain­ing yes­ter­day, an­oth­er fac­tion of the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith, led by Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal head Pa­tri­arch Wayne Jones, was last week pre­sent­ed with a $10 mil­lion cheque by Young for the com­ple­tion of a cathe­dral, ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex and her­itage park in Cou­va. The award­ing of the grant ful­filled a promise by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to sup­port the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith back in 2020 – and was ap­proved by Cab­i­net on Feb­ru­ary 20.

This was sec­ond part of Gov­ern­ment’s con­tri­bu­tion to mak­ing this a re­al­i­ty, as back in 2019, gov­ern­ment would have grant­ed the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty, along with oth­er re­li­gious groups, ac­cess to State land.

An ini­tial $10 mil­lion grant was pro­vid­ed at that time to start their project.

Min­is­ter Mitchell re­sponds

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Mitchell not­ed that Arch­bish­op Burke had con­firmed her or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived fund­ing for their pre­vi­ous cel­e­bra­tions.

“This year, Arch­bish­op Burke’s or­gan­i­sa­tion DID NOT ap­ply. I am told that min­istry staff called on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions since Feb­ru­ary and in­to March to ad­vise and re­mind of the ap­pli­ca­tion process and to en­sure ear­ly ap­pli­ca­tion for grant fund­ing.

“Once an ap­pli­ca­tion for grant fund­ing from the Na­tion­al Days and Fes­ti­vals Fund is made, it is processed and as­sessed by the grants and spon­sor­ship com­mit­tee in the min­istry, where rec­om­men­da­tions are made to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and the Min­is­ter for ad­min­is­tra­tive sign-off. It is then tak­en to Cab­i­net for its not­ing.”

He said rec­om­men­da­tions for fund­ing are based on sev­er­al things.

“The ap­pli­ca­tion process is ground­ed in pol­i­cy, is trans­par­ent, and can stand scruti­ny,” he said.

Asked if Burke’s al­liance to the UNC had in­flu­enced the amount of fund­ing her or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived fund­ing, Mitchell said, “Her po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance has noth­ing to do with the fund­ing she has re­ceived over the last nine years. Her po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance, how­ev­er, has every­thing to do with her un­for­tu­nate com­ments.”