Joel Julien

Spend­ing mon­ey on Car­ni­val is one one of the best in­vest­ments this coun­try can make, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters has said.

And as such peo­ple should not ques­tion the State spend­ing mon­ey on Car­ni­val when the coun­try is fac­ing fi­nan­cial con­straints even if there may be dif­fi­cul­ties to ac­cess hos­pi­tal beds and get wa­ter, he said.

Pe­ters made the state­ment yes­ter­day as the launch of Car­ni­val 2020 themed “Re­ju­ve­na­tion bet­ter than ever” took place at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

“Of­ten­times I would hear peo­ple say that we are spend­ing mon­ey on Car­ni­val and we don’t have no beds in the hos­pi­tal, we spend­ing mon­ey on Car­ni­val and we can’t get wa­ter, but I want to say to you this af­ter­noon that spend­ing mon­ey on Car­ni­val is one of the best in­vest­ments that this coun­try can make with im­me­di­ate re­turns,” Pe­ters said to loud ap­plause from those in at­ten­dance.

“Be­cause I want to say to you if we spend $1 on Car­ni­val and we get one Bar­ba­dos dol­lar in re­turn we are ahead of the game, if we get one Grena­di­an dol­lar we are ahead of the game, and if we con­tin­ue to get US, Eu­ros and Cana­di­an dol­lars we are way ahead of the game,” he said.

Pe­ters said we must con­tin­ue to in­vest in Car­ni­val.

“So any mon­ey that we spend on Car­ni­val I say to you this af­ter­noon is well spent and we should con­tin­ue to spend mon­ey on Car­ni­val and in­vest be­cause it is an in­vest­ment that brings im­me­di­ate re­turn to our coun­try,” he said.

He said oth­er coun­tries are hav­ing their own Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions now be­cause the ben­e­fits they get from it are “well worth it”.

“Every oth­er Caribbean is­land they are em­u­lat­ing us and putting on Car­ni­val, it is not be­cause peo­ple want to wine and jam it is be­cause of the eco­nom­ic re­turns that it brings to the coun­try and I am say­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go is no dif­fer­ent so the time has come for us to look at Car­ni­val as a true busi­ness, in­vest wise­ly, man­age it wise­ly and so our Car­ni­val would be prof­itable to each and every one of us,” he said.

Pe­ters said, “as tight as the mon­e­tary cir­cum­stances are we must find a way to pro­mote our Car­ni­val, it is an as­pect of our life that is nec­es­sary”.

The of­fi­cial launch of Car­ni­val was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to take place on Sep­tem­ber 23, the day be­fore Re­pub­lic Day.

Pe­ters said that date was se­lect­ed for two rea­sons, first­ly to give any­one in­ter­est­ed in com­ing to the coun­try enough time to pre­pare, and sec­ond­ly to be sym­bol­ic since it is the day be­fore our cel­e­bra­tion of be­com­ing a Re­pub­lic.

The launch had to be resched­uled to yes­ter­day be­cause of ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions and warn­ings from Trop­i­cal Storm Karen.

Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly, who was fac­ing ques­tions sur­round­ing a $4,000 cake for Car­ifes­ta, did not ad­dress the crowd yes­ter­day.

She, how­ev­er, was in at­ten­dance at the event.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) Ros­alind Gabriel, who al­so ad­dressed the crowd, said yes­ter­day’s event was a “gift to the na­tion”.