BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

For yet an­oth­er year T&T would not be able to cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence Day with the tra­di­tion­al mil­i­tary pa­rade.

In a state­ment by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds that ad­vised due to the cur­rent COVID sit­u­a­tion there will be no pa­rade this year.

This is the sec­ond year in a row the pa­rade and oth­er tra­di­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions com­mem­o­rat­ing the mile­stone had to be scrapped due to the pan­dem­ic.

The re­lease said, “Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion it was de­ter­mined that the safest op­tion would be to forego host­ing any pa­rade this year.”

The re­lease al­so cau­tioned peo­ple to re­main mind­ful of the cur­rent pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions that are in place.

Guardian Me­dia had con­tact­ed Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell yes­ter­day to find out what as­pect of cel­e­bra­tions might be al­lowed this year to com­mem­o­rate the 59th an­niver­sary but all calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.

The pa­rade which usu­al­ly starts ear­ly in the morn­ing and the fire­works dis­play at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah at night have been ma­jor el­e­ments of this coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions for years.