Renu­ka Singh

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas is now try­ing to se­cure a $75 mil­lion loan from First Cit­i­zens in or­der to clear up debts ac­crued as a re­sult of his mis­cal­cu­lat­ing last year's bud­get.Un­til that loan is se­cured, Car­ni­val 2015 win­ners can­not be paid.Stake­hold­er for the car­ni­val fra­ter­ni­ty, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), yes­ter­day con­firmed that with­out the $75 mil­lion there would be no mon­ey in the cof­fers to pay out prize mon­ey, de­spite Dou­glas' min­istry hav­ing re­ceived a $314 mil­lion bud­get al­lo­ca­tion last year.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai has al­so con­firmed the loan amount be­ing sought by Dou­glas.In Jan­u­ary, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that Dou­glas had ap­proached Howai for some $150 mil­lion, in ad­di­tion to the al­ready ap­proved al­lo­ca­tion for the Cul­ture Min­istry. It was re­port­ed then that both Dou­glas and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair, Lor­raine Pouchet, met with Howai in or­der to se­cure the funds, but were told to rene­go­ti­ate with con­trac­tors to have that fig­ure re­duced.

At the time, Dou­glas had staunch­ly de­nied that re­port, say­ing that there was noth­ing amiss in his bud­get al­lo­ca­tion. He ad­mit­ted then that he was seek­ing ad­di­tion­al fund­ing through Howai and the Cab­i­net, but stat­ed that it was for up­grades to event venues for the phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged, im­proved pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties, hir­ing of more staff at the NCC and more re­search and analy­sis in­to fu­ture car­ni­val-re­lat­ed projects. At no time, how­ev­er, did Dou­glas say that the short­fall would af­fect the pay­ments to the mas fra­ter­ni­ty.

How­ev­er, the Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the $75 mil­lion hole has now left Dou­glas go­ing cap in hand to the banks, seek­ing a loan that will cov­er pay­ments to the win­ning mas mak­ers."The Min­istry of A&M (Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism) has re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al fund­ing in the form of a loan to meet ad­di­tion­al com­mit­tents for Car­ni­val 2015."The Min­is­ter (Dou­glas) has made sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions re­gard­ing this mat­ter, which is the sub­ject of con­sid­er­a­tion by the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my," Howai said.

"I un­der­stand that their bankers are First Cit­i­zens, but I'm not sure whether they have ap­proached any bank re­gard­ing the fi­nanc­ing. This won't be able to be pro­gressed un­til the Cab­i­net has pro­vid­ed ap­proval."Dou­glas can­not seek the loan with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval, and with the oil price dip­ping be­low the $50 mark Cab­i­net in­sid­ers say that he is un­like­ly to get it.

Big short­fall

One month ago, the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Dou­glas re­gard­ing the fi­nan­cial sta­tus of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), as it was re­spon­si­ble for pay­ing the Car­ni­val 2015 com­pe­ti­tion win­ners.There was no re­sponse. The Sun­day Guardian again e-mailed Dou­glas about this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, but again there was no re­sponse.At­tempts to reach NC­BA head David Lopez were al­so un­suc­cess­ful, but the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed the NC­BA's re­tained pub­lic re­la­tions com­pa­ny, Cir­rus Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, through its di­rec­tor Col­in Greaves.

In an e-mailed re­sponse yes­ter­day, Greaves con­firmed that the short­fall was hold­ing up pay­ments to the Car­ni­val 2015 win­ners."The as­so­ci­a­tion is op­er­at­ing with­in the bound­aries of the ap­proved bud­get for 2015, which in­cludes op­er­a­tional costs and prizes for the var­i­ous com­pe­ti­tions," Greaves said."The gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion that the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­ceives cov­ers the val­ue of the ap­proved bud­get. To date, the NC­BA has not re­ceived the full sub­ven­tion for 2015. When the sub­ven­tion is re­leased, the req­ui­site pay­ments to the win­ners of Car­ni­val 2015 will be made."

The NCC, in re­sponse to ques­tions, said: "The Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my is aware there was a sig­nif­i­cant short­fall in the amount al­lo­cat­ed and the NCC re­quires ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to han­dle the op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es for the bal­ance of the fis­cal year."