Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin has or­dered the new Board of Com­mis­sion­ers at the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion to fix the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional cri­sis, warn­ing there will be no grace pe­ri­od un­der her lead­er­ship.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day, Ben­jamin re­spond­ed to mount­ing com­plaints from Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers who have not been paid for ser­vices pro­vid­ed dur­ing Car­ni­val 2025. De­spite the NCC se­cur­ing a two hun­dred mil­lion dol­lar loan in April to meet those oblig­a­tions, one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-eight mil­lion dol­lars re­mains out­stand­ing.

“The suc­cess of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val can­not and will not be de­railed by poor ad­min­is­tra­tion,” Ben­jamin said. “We owe it to our stake­hold­ers, our com­mu­ni­ties, and our cul­ture to en­sure that re­sources are used re­spon­si­bly, trans­par­ent­ly, and with max­i­mum im­pact.”