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DA­REECE PO­LO

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin yes­ter­day de­clared Car­ni­val 2026 a suc­cess, cit­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals, job cre­ation and strong at­ten­dance at events.

Ac­cord­ing to Ben­jamin, the Min­istry of Cul­ture spent $137 mil­lion on the sea­son, mon­ey she de­scribed as “well spent.” She said more than 37,000 vis­i­tors en­tered the coun­try, ho­tels in Port-of-Spain op­er­at­ed at ca­pac­i­ty, and more than 2,000 jobs were cre­at­ed, in­clud­ing 147 di­rect jobs, over 400 road mar­shals, 200 ush­ers and 83 com­pli­ance of­fi­cers.