Carisa Lee

On the day the world cel­e­brat­ed T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, came an his­toric day for the steel­pan. The Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments of Trinidad and To­ba­go Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MITTCO) of­fi­cial­ly opened its doors in Diego mar­tin, yes­ter­day.

MITTCO is a steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty at the Di­a­mond Vale Busi­ness Park that pro­motes re­li­able ar­ti­san pro­duc­tion of steel­pans through a com­bi­na­tion of tra­di­tion­al and in­no­v­a­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es.

Dur­ing the launch­ing, brain­child and Di­rec­tor of Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment of MITTCO, Akua Lei­th, said see­ing his idea come to life was sur­re­al.

“The en­er­gy has been hap­pen­ing for quite some time, 2018 the idea came, 2019, I met with Mario and Mr Hack­et lat­er that year, I met with the Hadad broth­ers and HAD­CO and then we start­ed to es­tab­lish this in 2020,” Lei­th said.

He said the fac­to­ry start­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing in 2021 not just to build stock but to test the qual­i­ty of a state-of-the-art in­stru­ment.

“We ac­tu­al­ly sold our very first pan to Pe­ter Cavendish, the Am­bas­sador of the Eu­ro­pean Union,” Lei­th said

He said they were al­ways go­ing to launch dur­ing Au­gust to co­in­cide with the cel­e­bra­tion of Pan Month and there was no bet­ter day than World Steel­pan Day.

Di­rec­tor Mario Joseph, who has been in the pan fra­ter­ni­ty for 35-plus years, said yes­ter­day was a glo­ri­ous day for them, as it showed the world who is the mec­ca of the steel­pan.

Joseph said this fac­to­ry will not on­ly pro­duce steel­pans but give young peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in the steel­pan an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn about the mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

“So, the dy­ing art won’t die,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, dur­ing her ad­dress, said the fa­cil­i­ty showed this coun­try’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment is not in dan­ger.

She said yes­ter­day’s launch was sym­bol­ic of the vi­sion and part­ner­ships the Gov­ern­ment wish­es to see in the cre­ative in­dus­try, adding the ven­ture rep­re­sents di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion to its core birthed from the syn­er­gy of cul­ture and busi­ness.

Gopee-Scoon said com­pa­ny was more than an in­vest­ment, as it rep­re­sent­ed the pas­sion for cul­ture along with trust and faith in the po­ten­tial of our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, which will un­doubt­ed­ly lead to the growth of the in­dus­try and pro­pel steel­pan in­stru­ments proud­ly.

“Made in Trinidad and To­ba­go on the world stage, where it so right­ful­ly be­longs,” Gopee-Scoon said.

She con­grat­u­lat­ed the MITTCO team and promised Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port.

Al­so present was To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine. He agreed with Gopee-Scoon that “pan is not in dan­ger,” but said it once seemed so when oth­ers mass pro­duced our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. He said MITTCO al­lows for T&T to put its man­u­fac­tur­ing stamp on its cre­ation.

“For us to say to the world you don’t need to buy the coun­ter­feit, just buy it from those who un­der­stand pan the best,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said the man­u­fac­tur­ing of the steel­pan here will al­so give young peo­ple a chance to get in­volved in T&T’s cul­ture.

“What I see hap­pen­ing every sin­gle year around Panora­ma, I see hun­dreds of young peo­ple mov­ing about the coun­try, some mov­ing from Trinidad and vice ver­sa ... spend­ing all night do­ing it, I’ve seen young peo­ple push trol­leys off the boat,” he ex­plained.

Af­ter a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty, Au­gus­tine said, “This is one of our great­est gifts to the world if not our great­est gift as a na­tion.”