DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is once again de­fend­ing spend­ing on In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions staged by the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC), the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion (PoSCC), and the par­ty it­self.

This fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­fence of her Cab­i­net mem­bers at­tend­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) match­es at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my on In­de­pen­dence week­end, de­spite threats against Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that trig­gered the on­go­ing state of emer­gency.

The Prime Min­is­ter de­flect­ed the ques­tion on her min­is­ters’ at­ten­dance at CPL match­es, which was raised by the PNM, in­stead ar­gu­ing that the PNM should in­stead hold its cor­po­ra­tions ac­count­able for funds “shame­less­ly wast­ed on fete­ing and rum drink­ing un­der the guise of in­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions” dur­ing that week­end.

Ad­dress­ing the PM’s re­tort, Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main in­sist­ed the spend­ing was “val­ue for mon­ey.”

“It showed that that (In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade) was missed and per­sons were hap­py to have that. And I keep hear­ing mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment talk about the use of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey and wastage of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. There were a lot of tax­pay­ers who were there who were very hap­py, who had no prob­lems with some of their mon­ey per­haps be­ing used for this event for their own en­joy­ment as well,” he said.

When asked whether the funds would have been bet­ter used to sup­port the more than 30,000 CEPEP, URP and re­for­esta­tion work­ers the PNM said were laid off by the Gov­ern­ment, Ro­main replied that the par­ty had al­ready pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance to many of those af­fect­ed.

“Things have been done to as­sist par­ents and the Gov­ern­ment must un­der­stand that a lot of these par­ents who are com­ing to our of­fices seek­ing as­sis­tance is be­cause of what they did,” he said.

“They at­tack us as mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and say that we are wicked and all of these dif­fer­ent things but they don’t see what we do be­hind the scenes.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said the TPRC had held sim­i­lar events in the past, adding that it was “strange” the Prime Min­is­ter was ques­tion­ing var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions for host­ing events af­ter dar­ing her (Beck­les) to do so when the Op­po­si­tion com­plained about the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to can­cel the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade.

She re­mind­ed that the PNM host­ed an event at City Hall with the Port-of-Spain May­or and that the TPRC al­so threw events.

“The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has un­der­es­ti­mat­ed the im­por­tance of in­de­pen­dence to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Beck­les said.

Beck­les said there is eco­nom­ic and so­cial ac­tiv­i­ty sur­round­ing In­de­pen­dence Day events, not­ing that she has at­tend­ed them for years. She re­mind­ed that un­der then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Cab­i­net ap­proved $1.5 mil­lion to cel­e­brate na­tion­al pride. This fig­ure in­clud­ed ex­pens­es such as rent­ing the Grand Stand fa­cil­i­ties, hir­ing ush­ers, con­struct­ing me­dia tow­ers, in­stalling au­dio sys­tems, pro­vid­ing guest re­fresh­ments, and rent­ing chairs and bus­es.

Mean­while, TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin said the cor­po­ra­tion was still fi­nal­is­ing ex­pen­di­ture fig­ures, not­ing that cor­po­rate en­ti­ties sup­plied three-quar­ters of the fund­ing through do­na­tions and spon­sor­ships, not all of which were mon­e­tary. He added that the event fol­lowed the same for­mat as last year.