One of the founders of In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch, Gre­go­ry Fer­nan­dez, be­lieves T&T’s Car­ni­val is be­ing mo­nop­o­lised and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits are not fil­ter­ing down­wards to those who need it most.

Fer­nan­dez, who is al­so the pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, made the com­ment at an MSJ press con­fer­ence at St Joseph’s Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day. As a cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, Fer­nan­dez said T&T will be eco­nom­i­cal­ly chal­lenged over the next few years and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of T&T’s Car­ni­val was need­ed.

“Ven­dors are be­ing pushed out of Car­ni­val. We are see­ing cer­tain bands mo­nop­o­lised by one group. There have been ex­ten­sive bud­get cuts and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties com­plain that they are no longer reap­ing any eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit from Car­ni­val,” Fer­nan­dez said.

He not­ed that a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the Car­ni­val bud­get must be done.

Fer­nan­dez said every year, the gov­ern­ment gives con­tracts for tents and in­fra­struc­ture to the tune of tens of mil­lions of dol­lars.

“Why not buy this in­fra­struc­ture and have it ready to use for Car­ni­val,” he added.

He said the East Port-of-Spain area should al­so be made in­to a Car­ni­val Her­itage site.

“Year-round, this her­itage site could at­tract do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al tourists. You can go there and see how a steel­pan is be­ing tuned. It could gen­er­ate a whole lot of eco­nom­ic, ac­tiv­i­ty,” Fer­nan­dez said.

He added that a pro­pos­al has been cre­at­ed to di­ver­si­fy Car­ni­val which will be shared with the Gov­ern­ment.

Fer­nan­dez said T&T had a rich cul­tur­al lega­cy that must be pre­served through the es­tab­lish­ment of cul­tur­al theme parks and sug­gest­ed Cha­cachacare Is­land could be used as a lo­ca­tion.

“We think us­ing skills in mas, a theme park could be built on Cha­cachacare Is­land to build El Do­ra­do, the city of Gold, com­plete with a sun god. There could al­so be a Hor­ror House, pre­sent­ing all the char­ac­ters of our folk­lore,” Fer­nan­dez added.

He said this would at­tract tourism and gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change for T&T.

MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah said cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment was part of the MSJ’s eco­nom­ic plan which will pro­vide a life­line in the fu­ture for T&T.