SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters, has said it does not make eco­nom­ic sense to have Car­ni­val in To­ba­go at the same time as Trinidad Car­ni­val.

The NCC boss made the com­ment at the start of the 2023 Medi­um Con­ven­tion­al Band Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 12.

"We have stud­ied it over the years and that's the rea­son why we are hav­ing a delinked car­ni­val from To­ba­go this year,” Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters ex­plained.

He added: “Hav­ing said all of that, you are not de­prived of your pan and ca­lyp­so and I can as­sure you that when Oc­to­ber comes, To­ba­go will be trans­formed in­to the car­ni­val that you re­al­ly want us to have—you will have more pan, more mas and more eco­nom­ic val­ue."

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Far­ley Au­gus­tine, ap­plaud­ed Pantrin­ba­go on how it has man­aged the pan com­pe­ti­tions for Car­ni­val 2023.

“Pantrin­ba­go has been able to do cul­tur­al­ly what T&T has been strug­gling to do po­lit­i­cal­ly,” Au­gus­tine said, "to have pan in a ma­jor way, in all parts of the coun­try."

And Pantrin­ba­go pres­i­dent, Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, stat­ed it was im­por­tant that pan be cel­e­brat­ed through­out the en­tire coun­try.