An­ge­lo Je­didi­ah

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

More than three months af­ter Car­ni­val 2026, steel­bands across T&T are still wait­ing to re­ceive their Panora­ma prize mon­ey, with Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore say­ing thou­sands of play­ers and stake­hold­ers re­main in lim­bo.

As steel­bands gath­ered in the spir­it of love and to­geth­er­ness at this year’s Com­PAN­ions Steel­band Sports & Fam­i­ly Day yes­ter­day, there was a feel­ing of un­cer­tain­ty and frus­tra­tion over the de­lay.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian at the event at Nel­son Man­dela Park, Ram­sey-Moore said as­sur­ances were orig­i­nal­ly giv­en by Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin that most pay­ments would be made by the end of May.

“This is the very first time that I’m ex­pe­ri­enc­ing that be­cause the pol­i­cy of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) re­al­ly is to treat with grass­root or­gan­i­sa­tions and their pay­ments. So ba­si­cal­ly mas, pan and ca­lyp­so would have been the first set of pay­ments that would been made,” she said.

In re­cent years, Panora­ma Prize Dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­monies were held in the month of April. In 2025, the cer­e­mo­ny was held on April 15, where more than $25 mil­lion in prize mon­ey was dis­trib­uted. In 2024, on April 8, $16.9 mil­lion was al­so dis­trib­uted in prizes.

Ac­cord­ing to one band­leader, prize mon­ey as­sists with the pay­ment of a range of ser­vices and du­ties, in­clud­ing the up­keep of pa­n­yards, the prepa­ra­tion of in­stru­ments, the hir­ing of pan arrangers, and se­cu­ri­ty and trans­port ser­vices. They al­so cov­er pay­ments for many play­ers who en­dured more than 70 hours of re­hearsals in prepa­ra­tion for the Car­ni­val sea­son.

And while mem­bers of all three fra­ter­ni­ties have yet to be paid, Ram­sey-Moore said that, thus far, on­ly per­form­ers at this year’s in­au­gur­al Fla­va Vil­lage have re­ceived pay­ments.

She main­tained that the Fla­va Vil­lage is a “very good and ex­cit­ing ini­tia­tive” but ques­tioned where the funds came from, claim­ing it was nev­er catered or bud­get­ed for.

“It means that the mon­ey that went to pay Fla­va came from some­where else. Just as that was giv­en a pri­or­i­ty. And so yes, I want to see Fla­va con­tin­ue for Car­ni­val 2027. But at the end of the day, you must put pri­or­i­ty on mas, pan and ca­lyp­so. We are the mak­ers of the Car­ni­val,” she added.

She said Pan Trin­ba­go hopes that by the end of June, all out­stand­ing re­mit­tances will be set­tled. Ram­sey-Moore added that she has al­ready draft­ed a let­ter seek­ing a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the mat­ter.

“She [Per­sad-Bisses­sar] has been around town very long, so I know she un­der­stands the so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pact of the steel pan com­mu­ni­ty. And to tell you the truth, I am not sure the oth­ers un­der­stand that.”

At­tempts were made to get a re­sponse from Min­is­ter Ben­jamin but she did not re­spond.