Pe­ter Ray Blood

Heed­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's call for pru­dent fis­cal man­age­ment, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) has scaled down on spend­ing for Car­ni­val 2016. The NCC has re­duced the Car­ni­val bud­get by $60 mil­lion.

"From the NCC's per­spec­tive," said chair­man Ken­ny De Sil­va, "there will be some down­siz­ing for Car­ni­val 2016. We are try­ing to man­age any ex­cess­es that ex­ist­ed pri­or to 2016. How­ev­er, in terms of al­lo­ca­tion there will be no ma­jor changes."

One bit of Car­ni­val ex­pen­di­ture that will be elim­i­nat­ed is the Car­ni­val Vil­lage which has been staged at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain for the past three years. De Sil­va con­firmed: "We sim­ply don't have the mon­ey to af­ford it al­though it was a very laud­able project. The bud­get for the Car­ni­val Vil­lage had an es­ti­mat­ed ball­park fig­ure of $18 mil­lion."

Back at the helm of the NCC for a third term, De Sil­va said: "This is my tenth year (2001-2007; 2010-2011; 2016) in the chair so it feels like be­ing back home.

"I am try­ing to bring new things to the ta­ble. I would like to do some­thing with Di­manche Gras as it doesn't have the same ap­peal as it did be­fore. At the mo­ment, we are in dis­cus­sions with pro­duc­ers and de­sign­ers."

De Sil­va ex­plained that the $60 mil­lion deficit was not ac­tu­al­ly a re­duc­tion in the Car­ni­val bud­get; the mon­ey was used to pay debts from last Car­ni­val (2015). De­spite as­sur­ances by De Sil­va that al­lo­ca­tions to spe­cial in­ter­est groups would be ho­n­oured, ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of Pan Trin­ba­go are con­cerned at their re­duced al­lo­ca­tion for 2016.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said that Gov­ern­ment should be in­vest­ing more mon­ey in­to in­dige­nous cul­ture with the omi­nous shad­ow of re­ces­sion hov­er­ing over the coun­try.

"At a time of re­ces­sion," said Di­az, "cul­ture and so­cial fund­ing should be boost­ed. This goes a long way in strength­en­ing the spir­it of a peo­ple."

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­cent­ly held a meet­ing with the Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive, and Di­az said that dis­cus­sions were "frank and hon­est."

He said: "The meet­ing touched on a num­ber of ar­eas con­cern­ing the steel­band move­ment, in­clud­ing the short­fall of the al­lo­ca­tion of prize mon­ey for Panora­ma as well as as­sis­tance to steel­bands and ap­pear­ance fees. Next year sees a record num­ber of steel­bands reg­is­tered for Panora­ma, 177 bands all told, but there has not been an in­crease in Panora­ma prizes for ten years.

"In 2015, Pan Trin­ba­go was giv­en $34 mil­lion and that was for prize mon­ey and the oth­er in­ci­den­tals of the com­pe­ti­tion. This year we have an al­lo­ca­tion of $30 mil­lion. We will try to pinch a lit­tle here and pinch a lit­tle there but it is ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult. We can't cut prize mon­ey and as­sis­tance to the steel­bands. At this time, with Car­ni­val be­ing so close, it is al­so very very dif­fi­cult to source as­sis­tance from the cor­po­rate sec­tor. I am say­ing thanks to any cor­po­rate body for any as­sis­tance they give to steel­bands.

"The pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment nev­er gave us the mon­ey for the last Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. All we got was $3 mil­lion. They al­so nev­er gave us the bal­ance of $2 mil­lion for the In­ter­na­tion­al Panora­ma. I am very dis­pleased by this as Pan Trin­ba­go is in a deep bind.

"One pos­i­tive thing though is that Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat kept his word and is at present com­plet­ing the restora­tion of Rio Claro Koskeros pa­n­yard. To me that is a great ges­ture he has done."

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo "Bro Re­sis­tance" Masim­ba said: "We al­ways get­ting cuts whether the econ­o­my is pro­gress­ing or is in re­ces­sion. We have to find ways to jug­gle with what we have.

How­ev­er, I want to give all ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and so­ca artistes the as­sur­ance that the prize struc­ture will re­main the same for the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tions and oth­er com­pe­ti­tions staged by Tu­co."

Tu­co as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary Shirlaine Hen­drick­son said: "Our gen­er­al coun­cil de­cid­ed, re­gard­less of the amount of the sub­ven­tion, we would not re­duce the monarch prize struc­ture."We sim­ply have to be cre­ative and cut our cloth ac­cord­ing­ly. Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are very re­source­ful and cre­ative peo­ple."

The much-trav­elled Hen­drick­son added that dis­cus­sions were in progress to de­cide on the shape of the 2016 Di­manche Gras.

With the re­moval of the Car­ni­val Vil­lage, the main at­trac­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah will be the Tu­co-man­aged Kaiso House ca­lyp­so tent, home of a num­ber of for­mer na­tion­al ca­lyp­so mon­archs like Chucky Gor­don, Karene As­che, Du­ane O'Con­nor and Singing San­dra. Com­ple­tion of the arts and crafts booths at this venue is in an ad­vanced stage.

Ros­alind Gabriel, pres­i­dent of the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA), told the Guardian: "Each band leader will have to do what they have to do as far belt-tight­en­ing is con­cerned...So far the NCC has not di­vulged any­thing about mon­ey, in­clud­ing what the prize struc­tures will be for the many com­pe­ti­tions in mas.

"We are hop­ing that we will know what the prizes will be be­fore we reg­is­ter for the com­pe­ti­tions."

Pan Trin­ba­go will stage the first Car­ni­val 2016 com­pe­ti­tion–Na­tion­al Panora­ma Sin­gle Pan (East) pre­lim­i­nary–on Jan­u­ary 8.tion or­der I ob­tained from the mag­is­trate's court on ac­count of the ha­rass­ment and per­sis­tent poul­try. Eight women with milk­ing cows showed up this morn­ing. You know I am lac­tose in­tol­er­ant and I had to hire labour­ers to shov­el away the ma­nure. By the way, Ram­bo has a li­censed shot­gun.

Jan­u­ary 2. The nine lovelies danc­ing in front of my house were a hit with the neigh­bours. Un­til they be­came a lit­tle too friend­ly. Di­vorce pro­ceed­ings have erupt­ed in three house­holds and I just saw Miss Dul­ci­na throw­ing her hus­band's shirt jacks out the win­dow.

Not my busi­ness, but why would you tell these dancers that I am run­ning a night­club and would hire them, with full room and board in­clud­ed? They are now re­fus­ing to leave be­cause they have no work per­mits, no mon­ey, and nowhere to go.

Jan­u­ary 3. You can't scare me, you lit­tle creep­o­zoid. What do you mean send­ing the gang of Lord broth­ers to my doorstep! It will take more than ten Lords leap­ing over my wall to in­tim­i­date me. The nine un­em­ployed dancers took care of most of them. And Ram­bo han­dled the 10th. Booy­a­ka!

Jan­u­ary 4. Lis­ten you lit­tle ban­dit! The 11 pipers pip­ing co­caine out­side my house have been ar­rest­ed by the po­lice. And a na­tion­wide drag­net has been launched for your lit­tle ran­cid tail.

Jan­u­ary 5. Dear John, I feel sor­ry for you. The pipers cut a deal with the po­lice and have agreed to tes­ti­fy against you at your tri­al for drug deal­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing and an­i­mal cru­el­ty. The 12 drum­mers drum­ming whom you sent to give the en­tire neigh­bour­hood a mi­graine will be per­form­ing tonight at the ben­e­fit con­cert for the chil­dren's home. Once I ex­plained that you were a very sick man on the Most Want­ed List, they were on­ly too hap­py to help.

The cows have been adopt­ed by a farmer in Waller­field; the swans are at the zoo; and the cur­ry duck is sim­mer­ing on the fire.

I de­cid­ed to keep the hens since the chil­dren think they are pets. I am al­so hang­ing on to the gold rings be­cause I de­serve some com­pen­sa­tion.

Ram­bo ran off with one of the dancers. But no mat­ter. The night­club idea ac­tu­al­ly is not a bad ven­ture and busi­ness should pick up nice­ly come Car­ni­val.

�2 The Twelve Days of Christ­mas has been spoofed world­wide by every­body in sim­i­lar and no doubt greater fash­ion. Ac­cept my hum­ble con­tri­bu­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al idle­ness at wrenchel­sa@hot­mail.com