Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­lease all avail­able in­for­ma­tion on why it can­celled this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works, say­ing the pub­lic de­serves full trans­paren­cy.

The de­ci­sion, an­nounced on Fri­day, has sparked wide­spread de­bate. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ex­plained that the move was tak­en due to on­go­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

They cit­ed in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing that bring­ing to­geth­er the Pres­i­dent, ju­di­cia­ry, mil­i­tary, and oth­er na­tion­al lead­ers in one lo­ca­tion could pose a risk. While some threats have re­port­ed­ly been neu­tralised, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials main­tain that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing and the na­tion­al threat lev­el re­mains el­e­vat­ed.