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“Ab­solute fool­ish­ness”—that is how Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley de­scribed the heavy for­eign ex­change spend­ing on Car­ni­val cos­tumes. While he un­der­stands that peo­ple want to en­joy them­selves dur­ing Car­ni­val, he in­sists that cos­tumes are not in­vest­ments.

Speak­ing at the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for Nu­trim­ix’s An­i­mal Feed and Pet Food plant in Point Lisas yes­ter­day, Row­ley re­vealed that he re­cent­ly saw some­one of­fer­ing a sig­nif­i­cant sum of mon­ey for Car­ni­val cos­tumes. He em­pha­sised that cos­tumes should be lo­cal­ly sourced.

“I saw a chil­dren’s band on Sat­ur­day, and I think it was the best band in the large band cat­e­go­ry for tod­dlers. All the cos­tumes were made in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and that, to me, is what we should be about,” Row­ley said.