Planning Minister Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie believes the difficulty in reaching a resolution regarding the establishment of T&T Creative Industry Company (TTCIC) is that the Government did not engage with the stakeholders properly and effectively explain its position.
Tewarie spoke yesterday with T&T Guardian after the official thanksgiving ceremony of Nabbie Khan's 25th anniversary of his renal transplant, which was the first to be done in T&T. The ceremony took place at Nabbie's Medical Marketing compound, Curepe.
Tewarie said notwithstanding the failure of the Government to engage the stakeholders the way it should have, the Government was prepared to address that issue and would take a solution-oriented approach to it. "I think a lot of the difficulties are because the Government's position was not explained properly and we did not engage the stakeholders in a way that we should have and we need to do that."
However, he said, "We are taking a solution oriented approach to this. This is not a problem that is insurmountable or one that needs to be exacerbated." Tewarie said he thinks there is not enough of a distinction and an appreciation of the different ways they have to deal with festivals on the one hand and heritage on the other, as well as the creative industries which have business development potential.
"We need to understand the distinction among these and the differences in the way we approach things in the specific areas and those things need to be clarified." He said three ministers( Minster of Trade, Planning and Multiculturalism) could not attend the creative industry stakeholders' meeting hosted by T&T Coalition of Services Industry last Thursday at Capital Plaza , Port-of-Spain, because they had to attend Cabinet's meeting.
At the meeting Trade and Investment director Wayne Punnette said the government would go back to the drawing board regarding the establishment of the TTCIC. Tewarie said the proposal drafted by an expert panel in 2011 which the stakeholders were lobbying for the Government to implement has not been approved by Cabinet.
"The expert panel report had a number of recommendations and was not accepted when it was brought to Cabinet. Two of the reasons were the comprehensive nature of the programme and the cost." Asked what was the cost, Tewarie said he could not remember the exact figure, but was approximately $200 million.
He said there were two proposals, one was a short-term plan for the celebration of T&T 50th anniversary, which was approved and implemented and the other was the long term plan for the entire creative sector, which was not approved for the above reasons.
The three main things in the report
�2To establish a cultural capital entity that would manage all the creative enterprises from heritage and festivals to actual creative things that would generate income.
�2To basically rationalise the management of this by focusing on certain sectors of clusters like fashion, music and film.
�2To create a venture capital company that would allow the private sector to partner with some for the State agencies as an investor for creative sector.
Tewarie said these things required some deliberation and so the proposal was not implemented.