Kali­fa Clyne

The Gov­ern­ment has re­duced the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for Car­ni­val 2016 by ap­prox­i­mate­ly $44 mil­lion.This was re­vealed by Cul­ture, Arts and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

In 2015, the al­lo­ca­tion for Car­ni­val was $314 mil­lion but has de­creased to $270 mil­lion for next year's fes­ti­val.In an in­ter­view with re­porters af­ter yes­ter­day's open­ing of the $13 mil­lion Beetham Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the cur­rent eco­nom­ic con­di­tions have forced the Gov­ern­ment to cut back.

The 14 per cent re­duc­tion is the lat­est in a se­ries of cuts an­nounced by the Gov­ern­ment . Ear­li­er this month min­istries were ad­vised to re­duce spend­ing on Christ­mas par­ties and a far as pos­si­ble scale them down to cater for staff on­ly.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said: "Yes, that is what we are con­sid­er­ing at this point be­cause in every min­istry there are short­falls but we are look­ing to de­ter­mine how we can es­tab­lish the qual­i­ty of the fes­ti­val and not sac­ri­fice that just be­cause we don't have the ex­act al­lo­ca­tion that we would have ex­pect­ed from be­fore."

Asked if the Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers should be wor­ried about the pro­posed re­duc­tion in al­lo­ca­tion, Gads­by-Dol­ly re­spond­ed quick­ly: "We have been in con­tact with our stake­hold­ers and they un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion."

She said the min­istry was "in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion (with them) en­sur­ing that they have what they need and the sup­port from the min­istry to be able to bring off what they have to for the Car­ni­val."

Gads­by-Dol­ly said there was oth­er fund­ing pro­vid­ed from the min­istry and dif­fer­ent State en­ter­pris­es for Car­ni­val but she did not elab­o­rate.The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) has said it was look­ing at cre­ative ways to man­age the re­duced al­lo­ca­tion.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, NCC chair­man Ken­ny de Sil­va said the com­mis­sion was look­ing at how to cut costs or in­crease rev­enue.

Of the $270 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to the com­mis­sion for next year's fes­ti­val, $60 mil­lion was used to pay out­stand­ing debts."Con­trac­tors may have to ad­just their prices down­ward," De Sil­va said.He said that had al­ready be­come a re­al­i­ty, as sup­pli­ers, un­der­stand­ing the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, had giv­en the com­mis­sion dis­counts of be­tween 10 and 20 per cent.

"They are very sen­si­tive to the is­sue of less fund­ing. They are be­ing con­scious to that and are very amenable," he added.Ear­li­er this week, NCC com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Kevon Ger­vais said the com­mis­sion did not fore­see a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the fes­ti­val.

"There are changes that need to be made and so these changes will be made.

"We don't in­tend to do less things but we have to be more cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive in the way fund­ing is spent," Ger­vais added.

Last year, the NCC re­ceived over $314 mil­lion in fund­ing with a sig­nif­i­cant amount go­ing to­ward debts from the 2014 fes­ti­val.

Out of that fund­ing, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion re­ceived $14 mil­lion, Pan Trin­ba­go re­ceived $34.2 mil­lion and the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceived $10.8 mil­lion.

This year Pan Trin­ba­go will re­ceive $30 mil­lion in fund­ing while the oth­er two Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers will see fund­ing re­duced by ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2 mil­lion.Heads of Car­ni­val or­gan­i­sa­tions did not re­turn re­peat­ed calls yes­ter­day.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said she was not able to com­ment on the is­sue of the re­ten­tion of the $2 mil­lion first prize for the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch.

The show fea­tures the top So­ca artistes from T&T and the Caribbean. So­ca star Machel Mon­tano is not ex­pect­ed to de­fend his ti­tle this year, hav­ing said that last year would have been his last in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Pa­rade of the Bands will be on Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 8 and Tues­day Feb­ru­ary 9, 2016.