Ex-ministers criticise, defend responses to Blue Waters sponsorship

Three for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have weighed in on Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of Di­vali Na­gar, with Dr De­vant Ma­haraj crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of State sup­port, Dr Bhoe Tewarie warn­ing against politi­cis­ing the fes­ti­val and Ra­mona Ram­di­al wel­com­ing greater pri­vate-sec­tor in­volve­ment.

Their com­ments fol­low Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of the spon­sor­ship. Blue Wa­ters re­cent­ly in­creased its fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment to the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), be­com­ing a Di­a­mond Spon­sor of Di­vali Na­gar 2026, af­ter sev­er­al State-linked com­pa­nies with­drew their spon­sor­ship.

Full coverageSponsors Withdraw Support for Divali Nagar as NCIC Seeks Funding20 reports

Ma­haraj, who served in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, said pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tions con­tin­ued to sup­port Di­vali Na­gar even when the event was used by the op­po­si­tion to crit­i­cise the Gov­ern­ment.