Port-of-Spain May­or Ray­mond Tim Kee last night promised to launch a probe in­to the NC­BA's judg­ing cri­te­ria for this year's Pa­rade of the Bands com­pe­ti­tion, af­ter sev­er­al bands com­plained that they lost points be­cause they start­ed in down­town Port-of-Spain in­stead of at the first judg­ing point in Wood­brook.Speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly to a com­plaint from Ros­alind Gabriel, Tim Kee said it seemed NC­BA pres­i­dent David Lopez was once again mak­ing far reach­ing de­ci­sions which could bring the com­pe­ti­tion in­to dis­re­pute."It is ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous. Con­trary to what he be­lieves, that man (Lopez) is not God. He feels he has the most pow­er and could just do any­thing and get away with it, but I will be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter."

In an ear­li­er in­ter­view, Tim Kee had said he had no prob­lem with bands re­quest­ing their score­sheets if there were is­sues with the judg­ing."If fact, it would on­ly serve to add to the is­sue of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty," he said.Al­so con­tact­ed last night af­ter the T&T Guardian re­alised there was wide­spread dis­con­tent with the re­sults, NC­BA chair­man David Lopez ini­tial­ly said he had no an­swers.Pressed for a com­ment, how­ev­er, he said, "You feel you go just look at some­body and dis­qual­i­fy them? I don't know what you ex­pect me to say."Peo­ple get dis­qual­i­fied and you call­ing me on that? You can­not ex­pect me to make a com­ment on that, so I have noth­ing to say."But ear­li­er in the day when told of a query from Tri­ni Rev­ellers band­leader David Cameron, Lopez had said Cameron, like every­one else, was with­in his right to chal­lenge any de­ci­sion.Lopez said the All Stars's vic­to­ry came 51 years af­ter the last steel­band copped a large band ti­tle. He said in 1963 Sil­ver Stars won the ti­tle, the first and on­ly time a steel­band had won this pre­mier mas com­pe­ti­tion.

Sil­ver Stars por­trayed Gul­liv­er's Trav­els, de­signed by Rus­sell Char­ter, back then. The New­town-based steel or­ches­tra al­so ran away with the 1963 Peo­ple's Choice award. Trinidad All Stars man­ag­er Beres­ford Hunt, who was on his way to the air­port when the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed him af­ter the re­sults were an­nounced yes­ter­day, said he had seen vic­to­ry com­ing."I am quite elat­ed," Hunt said."We came third last year so we were ba­si­cal­ly knock­ing at the door. Nor­mal­ly we do two por­tray­als–one Mon­day and one Tues­day. This year we merged both and mixed every­thing."He said this year there was a com­mit­tee who de­signed the cos­tumes and this paid off.Al­so hap­py about the All Stars vic­to­ry was Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, who said it was a win for all steel­bands."Trinidad All Stars has been one of the bands which has been very com­mit­ted to the mas in Car­ni­val," Di­az said."I would like to cel­e­brate this not just for All Stars but as one for the steel­band move­ment on the whole. To see that we have won the mas cat­e­go­ry for band of the year, this is very re­ward­ing for the band."