Pre­dictably, the grum­bling has start­ed from the three Car­ni­val in­ter­est groups about the mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed for Taste of Car­ni­val, the scaled-down ver­sion of the an­nu­al fes­ti­val that gets go­ing to­wards the end of this week.

Al­most in uni­son, Pan Trin­ba­go, the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) and the T&T Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) have start­ed sig­nal­ing that $15 mil­lion will not cov­er the cost of host­ing their shows and com­pe­ti­tions.

As usu­al, they are re­liant on state fund­ing and are en­ter­ing in­to the sea­son emp­ty-hand­ed, un­able to show any rev­enue they have gen­er­at­ed on their own.

This is not an un­fa­mil­iar sit­u­a­tion for them. While the pan­dem­ic has been dif­fi­cult for the cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors, the Car­ni­val in­ter­est groups were in this woe­ful fi­nan­cial state for years be­fore COVID-19.

And it is not on­ly for Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties that they look for draw­downs from the Trea­sury. They al­so de­pend on these an­nu­al al­lo­ca­tions to fund their day-to-day op­er­a­tions, swal­low­ing up mil­lions of dol­lars for which they fail to prop­er­ly ac­count to the na­tion.

Along with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), the statu­to­ry body re­spon­si­ble for Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties across the coun­try, the in­ter­est groups were in­cor­po­rat­ed by Acts of Par­lia­ment and are re­quired to sub­mit au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments, along with oth­er doc­u­men­ta­tion for mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol of their op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, au­dits done be­tween Oc­to­ber 2013 and Sep­tem­ber 2016 by Ernst and Young Ser­vices Lim­it­ed at the re­quest of the Cul­ture Min­istry re­vealed a dis­turb­ing lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and val­ue for the mon­ey in­vest­ed in the in­ter­est groups.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ernst and Young re­port, ac­counts, and re­ceipts of rev­enue from ma­jor Car­ni­val-re­lat­ed events were not prop­er­ly checked and ac­count­ed for, ad­e­quate records were not kept of re­ceipts and pay­ment of sup­pli­ers’ in­voic­es and there was no ev­i­dence of ten­der­ing process­es be­ing used to pro­cure goods and ser­vices.

The au­di­tors al­so ex­pressed con­cern about con­flicts of in­ter­est where ex­ec­u­tives were award­ed con­tracts to pro­vide goods and ser­vices. In ad­di­tion, bank ac­counts, re­ceiv­ables ac­counts and payables were not pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly checked and rec­on­ciled, and bud­gets were not for­mal­ly ap­proved by the ex­ec­u­tives of the in­ter­est groups.

Based on what was un­earthed by these au­dits, it is no won­der that Car­ni­val is in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing a loss-mak­ing ven­ture and a bur­den to tax­pay­ers.

It does not have to be that way. While ca­lyp­so tents fail to draw crowds and the gate re­ceipts from most pan and mas com­pe­ti­tions are dis­ap­point­ing, the op­po­site seems to be the case with the Car­ni­val events host­ed by the pri­vate op­er­a­tors in the in­dus­try who don’t get state fund­ing.

There is mon­ey to be made in Car­ni­val, but the sums in­vest­ed an­nu­al­ly by the State are not yield­ing mea­sur­able re­turns.

The na­tion needs to hear from the in­ter­est groups about their op­er­a­tions and how they gen­er­ate rev­enue. A re­view of their op­er­a­tions is long over­due and should be done right af­ter the 2022 sea­son ends.

Leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy changes must be made so that the State gets more val­ue for the huge sums in­vest­ed an­nu­al­ly in Car­ni­val.