Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in Cen­tral Trinidad will face chal­lenges due to a fund­ing short­fall from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC).

Re­nee Bai­ley, Chair­man of the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (CBCC), said the CBCC ap­plied for al­most $600,000 from the NCC for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions but re­ceived on­ly $300,000. She said all re­gion­al bod­ies had their al­lo­ca­tions re­duced due to fi­nan­cial re­stric­tions from the NCC. Be­cause of this, the CBCC may have to cut its Mon­day evening pro­gramme, which fea­tures steel­pan and drum­ming, to stay with­in bud­get.

Bai­ley said, “Last year we got $400,000 from the NCC, this year we have re­quest­ed just over $600,000, we are ap­peal­ing to the NCC to re­view its de­ci­sion when it comes to fund­ing. We are al­so ap­peal­ing for more as­sis­tance from the pri­vate sec­tor to part­ner with us. We have re­ceived some spon­sor­ship from Am­plia and oth­er mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, but we need more fund­ing to en­sure that we have a full pro­gramme. We want to en­sure that our cul­ture and tal­ent grows. As you know, Ch­agua­nas has the biggest J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions out­side of Port of Spain, we ex­pect just over 26 J’Ou­vert bands to par­tic­i­pate this year.”

She said the com­mit­tee has been work­ing year-round to raise its own funds and im­prove its events. How­ev­er, she said the late no­tice of the re­duced fund­ing has made things much hard­er.

Mean­while, Ram­c­hand Ra­jbal Maraj, Chair­man of the Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (CCC), said the CCC will re­ceive $256,000 this year, af­ter sub­mit­ting a bud­get of just over $300,000.

Ra­jbal Maraj said, “What we will have to do is to cut prize monies, we can­not slash our planned 6 days of cel­e­bra­tions. The price of every­thing has gone up, we have erect­ed a stage at the Cou­va Pub­lic Car Park and let me give you one ex­am­ple, the cost of a length of 2x4x16 wood­en plank is around $600. Ris­ing costs are mak­ing it hard. We have ap­pealed to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, but they too are strug­gling.”

Yert Cyrus, Chair­man of the New Cara­pichaima Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, said he could not com­ment at this time.

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell, did not re­spond to mes­sages sent via What­sApp.