The Gov­ern­ment in­tends to pro­ceed with In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, in­clud­ing the tra­di­tion­al pa­rade at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, de­spite the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge con­firmed the plans dur­ing Fri­day night’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee de­bate in Par­lia­ment while re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MPs about fund­ing for In­de­pen­dence Day ac­tiv­i­ties and whether the cel­e­bra­tions could pro­ceed while emer­gency mea­sures re­main in force.

The con­fir­ma­tion comes al­most a year af­ter the Gov­ern­ment can­celled the tra­di­tion­al In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade, cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. The de­ci­sion sparked crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion and prompt­ed ques­tions about whether this year’s event would al­so be called off.