Crop Over returns after two-year break

Barbados will have a modified 2022 Crop Over.

Following queries from entertainment stakeholders regarding whether there will be a Crop Over season this year, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced at Saturday’s COVID-19 update and Press Conference that Barbadians will be happy to hear that the staging of Grand Kadooment and Fore Day Morning will be decentralized through at least eight venues.

“And it means that those persons who will attend those decentralized venues will have to adhere to the same rules that persons attending fetes will adhere to over the course of the next few months. We are happy for this because we know that after two years of no Crop Over and no release, people are more than waiting for this opportunity,” she said.

Mottley said it is believed that once the eight venues are properly fenced and with the new COVID protocols announced, all Barbadians living abroad and visitors looking forward to a 2022 Crop Over, which may be one of the first carnival-type events to be held in the region since the start of the pandemic in 2020, will be pleased with the announcement.

She said, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with day-to-day responsibilities for Culture, Senator Shantal Munroe-Knight and Chief Executive Officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) Carol Roberts-Reifer will be meeting with stakeholders to refine events that can be possibly held.

However, Mottley made it clear that while permission for entertainment events must still be channeled through the NCF and the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit at this time, the number of people allowed to attend an event will still depend on the size of the venue, and its ability to allow patrons who are fully vaccinated or show evidence of a negative COVID-19 test result, and to adhere to the three foot distancing requirement.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister also announced that public service workers will return to the physical work environment from Tuesday March 1. She said, while for the most part of the past two years people  worked remotely, the judgement has now been made that it is safe for persons to return to work fully from the given date.

“What does that mean in real terms? That there will still be elements of flexible work. As you know prior to the establishment of the regime for the pandemic, the social partnership had advised and the Government had accepted a regime of flexible work.

“And what does that mean in simple terms? That those persons who will partake in flexible work must receive the consent of their head of department and their permanent secretary. But it will not be a case of all persons operating from home as happened in certain departments before,” Mottley said. (AH)