Swift, coordinated clean-up after Carnival is being credited to the National Programme for the Upkeep of Public Spaces, spearheaded by the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government.
Ariapita Avenue was spotless in the wee hours of Ash Wednesday morning, with every trace of debris and rubbish left over from Carnival Tuesday celebrations having vanished.
Around 2am, Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Khadijah Ameen was on the ground, walking through Port of Spain with clean-up crews.
She was on hand to monitor the operations, ensuring workers and supervisors executed their tasks with precision and efficiency.
“The cleanup exercise saw the workers under the Ministry of Local Government who are assigned to the various Corporations together with the Corporation employees, we worked alongside the NCC and the NCC coordinators in all the regions. So they started clean-up from, in some cases, 11pm, because Carnival closed off early in those areas, but from midnight our workers were out on the road.”
Minister Ameen also outlined the scale of work carried out across several communities.
“Throughout the region thus far, our reports from Arima, Sangre Grande, San Fernando along the East West Corridor in Arouca and Tunapuna, by 2am they had completed their work. We were in Port of Spain earlier, South Quay is completed as well as on the Avenue. The workers are wrapping up on the Avenue at this time, and it’s just after 3am.”
She added that while Carnival has wrapped up, the efforts will continue as the season shifts and many citizens head to beaches and recreational spaces.
“Today is Ash Wednesday, a lot of people are heading to the beaches, and we appreciate the need for the continuation of the beach clean-up. The beach clean-up started on the 2nd of February, and it continues into Ash Wednesday and into the weekend till the end of this month. We have a lot of activities planned for areas on the North Coast as well as on the East Coast, the Matelot, Salybia areas. In South, we have the Moruga, we have Clifton Hill, so our teams will be out there, Mayaro, and so on. So the focus now will be on the beaches.”
Minister Ameen said the National Programme for the Upkeep of Public Spaces is fulfilling its mandate, rapidly restoring streets, parks, and high-traffic areas to a clean and orderly state.
She noted that coordination across multiple teams made the swift post-Carnival turnaround possible.
The programme was rolled out in early February, with a specific focus on the 2026 festivities, deploying more than one thousand workers across all 14 Regional Corporations.