Aabida Allaham

“There have been some concerns by our Chief Medical Officer of Health (Dr Anton Cumberbatch), and our Public Health Inspector (Dr Daniel Chang), with respect to how those toilets are carried… these trucks come out very early, particularly on Carnival Tuesday and I think some of those trucks would have been loaded from around six in the morning and would usually be on the road for about 12 hours, so how often they are serviced is something the public health department is not too certain about. Besides that, there have been numerous complaints of people falling sick on Ash Wednesday,” Brown said.

The Mayor, who recently returned from a week-long trip to New York, USA, said he was not aware of the decision by the Public Health Department to prohibit the use of the portable toilet trucks or portable food by the Carnival bands even though a letter was sent through City Hall’s administration department by Chang on August 18.

Nevertheless, he said he was in full agreement with the decision because “the Public Health Department wants to ensure that proper health standards are maintained” and it was “the corporation’s job to look after the health of Port of Spain”.

In terms of food preparation, the Mayor insisted that all they wanted was for the bands providing all inclusive service to offer hot food that was no older than four hours.

“Bands leave their site as early as seven, so if you have food on that vehicle from that time and so on, and is not to be served till about midday and it is not properly heated at the prescribed temperature, it is very likely the food will spoil,” he said.

When asked what would be provided in place of the portable toilet trucks, Brown recalled a time when the National Carnival Commission set up toilet banks in and around the Queen’s Park Savannah so that was always another option.

Meanwhile, a representative from Island People Mas said while it was in complete agreement with the decision taken by the Public Health Department, it wanted the corporation and the Public Health Department to make the decision a national policy and not one that only affects bands providing all-inclusive services.

According to the representative who wanted to remain unidentified, a percentage of the Carnival population, including spectators, was still at risk for food poisoning if they purchased food from street vendors or left home with their own food.

Vice president of the National Carnival Bandleaders Association, David Lopez, added that while “the law is the law” he hopes that all the stakeholders involved in putting on the greatest show on earth make the mas safe for all the participants since “90 per cent of the people who play Carnival are women”.

“They just have to make sure that whatever they decide on now is properly lit, well cleaned, with proper security,” he said.