Michelle Loubon

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba says there is the need for a "more or­gan­ised sys­tem of grant-fund­ing and things need to be or­gan­ised in a more trans­par­ent man­ner."

Masim­ba, fond­ly known as Broth­er Re­sis­tance, is al­so a mem­ber of the Artist Coali­tion of T&T (ACTT). He rep­re­sents more than 100 rap­so artistes and is renowned for his peren­ni­al Ring D Bell. Quizzed on what he ex­pect­ed from the bud­get, Masim­ba said: "We have a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions...But we need a more or­gan­ised sys­tem of grant-fund­ing. "Things have to be done in a more trans­par­ent man­ner," he said.

"Groups must know about the cri­te­ria for fund­ing and get­ting sup­port from the State's re­sources. They must al­so be in­formed in terms of di­rect sup­port for the build­ing and strength­en­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tions." In the 2009/10 bud­get, for­mer Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had said cul­ture had re­ceived $350 mil­lion.

He made ref­er­ence to fig­ures from the Ac­tu­al Es­ti­mates and Ex­pen­di­tures. Ze­ro­ing on Tu­co's needs, Masim­ba said Tu­co "on­ly gets a Car­ni­val sub­ven­tion." He said: "Tu­co does not get a sub­ven­tion. We on­ly get a Car­ni­val sub­ven­tion. Funds are al­lo­cat­ed for de­liv­er­ing the Car­ni­val prod­uct. He said Tu­co was man­dat­ed to pro­duce cer­tain com­pe­ti­tions. "The bulk of the monies is re­al­ly for prizes and the pro­mo­tion of events that are spe­cif­ic to Car­ni­val," Masim­ba said.

"We don't have much room to hire pro­fes­sion­als to take us to the next lev­el in terms of our cor­po­rate pro­grammes." Tu­co has a mem­ber­ship of about 700 artistes.

Man­war­ren: Give us more air­play

Wen­dell Man­war­ren, pres­i­dent of the Mu­sic Lib­er­a­tion Front of T&T, said he was op­ti­mistic that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship would en­sure artistes get fair air­play. His group al­so be­longs to ACTT. Man­war­ren said there were many mu­si­cians who don't per­form in the main­stream and were strug­gling to get record­ed. "We have a grow­ing num­ber of al­ter­na­tive live mu­sic on the stream...We be­lieve air­play is fun­da­men­tal to the de­vel­op­ment of the in­dus­try," he added.

Man­war­ren said he was hope­ful the ACTT's pleas would not fall on deaf ears, since Cul­ture Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters, fond­ly known as Gyp­sy, is al­so an artiste. "I would say be­ing a fel­low artiste one would hope he would be sym­pa­thet­ic with the plight of artistes and lend his sup­port to our cries," he said.