Caribbean Prestige Foundation (CPF) chairman William Munro has thrown up his hands in frustration, saying this is the last year he will be running the International Soca Monarch Competition. Munro, who has been producing the show since he founded it 18 years ago, cited that Minister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs Marlene Mc Donald was one of the people who contributed to that decision. Munro claimed he had been at constant loggerheads with McDonald over increased funding for the show and felt the minister was unapproachable.
"She is one of the persons responsible for my departure. She speaks to me too rough and she has to stop that," Munrosaid during an interview at CPF's Prince Street office yesterday. He said for that reason he believed he could have "nothing more to do with her. He said while he was grateful for funding given by the show's main sponsors as well as the Ministry of Culture, he had been forced to take money out of his own pocket to help fund the show. He showed the T&T Guardian a letter from a local bank which stated that for the last three years he had been using his Henry Street businessplace as collateral to get credit to help fund Soca Monarch. The letter was addressed to Culture Minister Marlene McDonald.
"It is a tremendous amount of funding to produce a show like that and it runs into about $10 million to $11 million," he said. He said prize money for this year's show amounted to almost $3 million but CPF only received $2 million in prize money from the Culture Ministry. Munro said that apart from that, he approached the Ministry of Tourism for help this year but received none. "The Ministry of Tourism usually helps us with the celebrity panel and gave us $750,000 last year but none this year," he said. "The Tourism Development Company (run by Ministry of Tourism) should have been leaning on our shoulders because this show brings in a lot of people to T&T," Munro added.
He said celebrities had to be paid thousands of dollars to come to T&T but he considered their visit important as the foreign media who follow them expose T&T to the rest of the world. Hollywood actors Samuel L Jackson, Delroy Lindo and Danny Glover are expected to attend the show tonight. Munro said also included in the bill to produce the show is the rental fee for the Queen's Park Oval and the cost to cover the venue's field which adds up to over $750,000. "Then we have to see about lighting, the stage as well as bringing in people from abroad to work on those areas and that is about $1 million," he said. But despite the financial problems faced, Munro promised that tonight's show would be a "fantastic presentation."
He added: "This is my last show and I will make sure to the bitter end that I put on a huge production. "I just hope that one day the ministries will wake up and realise that I am not being vindictive but I am for the development of the artform," he said. As to who will run the show next year Munro said: "I don't know, the brand is good but I don't know where the show will go from here." McDonald could not be reached for comments. All calls to her office yesterday went unanswered and she could not be reached on her cellphone as it was switched off.