PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The ab­sence of the North Stand may save the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion sig­nif­i­cant mon­ey, but with­out a vi­able al­ter­na­tive, it may cost Pan Trin­ba­go mil­lions in tick­et rev­enue.

Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore told the Guardian in a phone in­ter­view that the de­ci­sion to scrap the North Stand most di­rect­ly af­fect­ed her or­gan­i­sa­tion, as apart from reg­u­lar pa­trons, sev­er­al com­pa­nies ne­go­ti­ate pack­ages with Pan Trin­ba­go con­cern­ing the North Stand for Panora­ma.

"We stand to lose if the North Park is con­struct­ed as pro­posed.

"I have raised it with NCC, I have raised it al­so with my staff and we ex­pect that what­ev­er de­sign is put for­ward will en­sure that Pan Trin­ba­go's events are not af­fect­ed," said Ram­sey-Moore, who said that she un­der­stood and wel­comed change but that it should not come at the ex­pense of pan as the oth­er in­ter­est groups would not be as great­ly af­fect­ed as Pan Trin­ba­go.

She said that she met plans for the North Park in her very first meet­ing as a mem­ber of the NCC board.

Ram­sey-Moore ex­plained the plans to scrap the North Stand had al­ready been de­cid­ed, and up­on learn­ing of this she raised her con­cerns about the plan to scrap the North Stand and use a "North Park" in­stead.

"The North Stand was able to hold sev­en to eight thou­sand per­sons, and the North Park as it was pro­posed in its de­sign would have chal­lenges to hold that," said Ram­sey-Moore in a phone in­ter­view.

NCC Chair­man Win­ston 'Gyp­sy' Pe­ters an­nounced last week that the North Stand was set to be scrapped in 2019 amid cost con­cerns.

He said it cost $4 mil­lion to con­struct, main­tain, and dis­man­tle the struc­ture over the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, the North Stand has con­sis­tent­ly been one of the ma­jor rev­enue earn­ers for Pan Trin­ba­go. Last year, tick­ets for the North Stand for Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nals were sold at $350. This means a sold-out North Stand could have earned $2.8 m for that event from tick­ets sale alone.

The Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent said at the next meet­ing of the NCC board, a pro­pos­al will be shown to Pan Trin­ba­go con­cern­ing the North Park and Panora­ma.

NEW HOME FOR PAN BODY

Mean­while, af­ter some un­cer­tain­ty, Pan Trin­ba­go has set­tled in­to a new home thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan.

On Oc­to­ber 31, the new Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent and her ex­ec­u­tive came to get their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment and found an ex­tra let­ter ad­dressed to them.

A let­ter of pos­si­ble evic­tion from busi­ness­man Ricky Amar, af­ter it was found the coun­try's pan au­thor­i­ty had failed to pay rent at the Vic­to­ria Park Suite of­fice for four months and had owed $250,000 in ar­rears.

More than a month lat­er, Pan Trin­ba­go has moved in­to a small­er of­fice on the cor­ner of Mel­bourne and Duke streets, through the gen­eros­i­ty of Khan.

Pan Trin­ba­go, the Guardian learnt, will not pay rent for the of­fice un­til De­cem­ber 2019.

Mrs Ram­sey-Moore de­scribed Khan as a "Good Samar­i­tan" and added that the re­lo­ca­tion al­lowed the or­gan­i­sa­tion to move away from the group's trou­bles un­der the pre­vi­ous ex­ec­u­tive.

Ram­sey-Moore ex­plained that the ex­ec­u­tive was al­so work­ing on han­dling out­stand­ing pay­ments for em­ploy­ees, which had al­so proved a chal­lenge over the past year un­der the pre­vi­ous ex­ec­u­tive.

For­mer pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said these ar­rears were due to sev­er­al gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions fail­ing to pay monies to the pan body.

The new Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive was elect­ed on Oc­to­ber 28.