In 2020 the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion in­tend­ed to gift so­ca artiste Machel Mon­tano the keys to the cap­i­tal city. 

But then the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit our shores. 

"In 2020 we were about to cel­e­brate Machel, and what hap­pened was COVID hap­pened and we did not do it then," Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez told Guardian Me­dia Ltd. 

Then in 2021 when the Cor­po­ra­tion held its Civic Awards Cer­e­mo­ny the plan was to give Mon­tano the keys to the city. 

But un­for­tu­nate­ly, Mon­tano was out of the coun­try then. 

"Pre­sent­ing an award to some­body like him and he is out of the coun­try is like an oxy­moron," Mar­tinez said. 

Now how­ev­er it seems that it will be the third time's the charm for the Port of Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion as Mon­tano is sched­uled to be pre­sent­ed with the keys to the cap­i­tal city to­mor­row. 

"The event will be a statu­to­ry meet­ing that will be con­duct­ed at Adam Smith Square for the pre­sen­ta­tion of the award of the key to the city to Machel Je­sus Mon­tano for his 40 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice and his con­tri­bu­tion to­ward the cul­tur­al land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean and the wider world," Mar­tinez said. 

Mar­tinez said when the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion was ap­proached by Ul­ti­mate Events about plans to host a band launch which in­clud­ed a may­or's pa­rade he thought this was the ide­al time to give Mon­tano the keys to the cap­i­tal city. 

'When they dubbed it a may­or's pa­rade it brought in­to in­volve­ment the city of Port-of-Spain and the coun­cil, so we agreed that it was a great idea and we chose then as the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find out if Machel would be in the coun­try and I fig­ured it would be a nice op­por­tu­ni­ty to make that pre­sen­ta­tion then," he said. 

Mar­tinez said the event will be con­duct­ed as a Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion statu­to­ry meet­ing. 

Once the statu­to­ry meet­ing is end­ed Tribe and Ul­ti­mate Events will host the for­mal launch 'SUN­SETWKN' a new Car­ni­val band launch event. 

SUN­SETWKN, ac­cord­ing to Tribe's CEO Dean Ackin, is set to trans­form Trinidad as a new des­ti­na­tion week­end. 

Mar­tinez said he is hop­ing that Mon­tano will al­so per­form. 

The event is ex­pect­ed to kick off at 6 pm. 

This year Mon­tano cel­e­brates 40 years in mu­sic. 

Re­porter: Joel Julien