BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

Pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance” Masim­ba is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ap­point an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al team to fo­cus specif­i­cal­ly on the en­ter­tain­ment and cre­ative sec­tors in T&T.

Masim­ba made the state­ment, dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, af­ter it was asked what were his rec­om­men­da­tions fol­low­ing a lengthy press re­lease his or­gan­i­sa­tion is­sued on Thurs­day, de­pict­ing the mul­ti­ple chal­lenges the in­dus­try was cur­rent­ly fac­ing.

He be­lieves the team should com­prise the Min­istries of Cul­ture, Trade and In­dus­try, Tourism, So­cial De­vel­op­ment, and Fi­nance.

He said if this in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al body ex­ist­ed, then it could look at the var­i­ous as­pects that are con­nect­ed to this sec­tor and find ways to ad­dress the is­sues at fore.

Masim­ba said no sec­tor con­tribut­ing to the GDP of T&T was to be left be­hind in this time.

He reck­oned now was al­so the time to show true pa­tri­o­tism and sup­port for the na­tion’s peo­ple who make up the en­ter­tain­ment and cre­ative sec­tors by show­cas­ing their work via the air­waves—ra­dio and tele­vi­sion. This he said could gar­ner some fi­nan­cial re­lief through roy­al­ties, to those in the sec­tors great­ly af­fect­ed by the cur­rent eco­nom­ic dev­as­ta­tion caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Masim­ba not­ed 80 per cent of for­eign mu­sic by for­eign com­posers and en­ter­tain­ers was what our lo­cal ra­dio sta­tions play and when it comes to dis­tri­b­u­tion that 80 per cent of the col­lec­tion that is made, it has to be con­vert­ed to $US to be able to dis­trib­ute to the for­eign mar­ket.

He con­test­ed, at a time like this where the spir­its of the peo­ple of this na­tion and that of artistes need­ed lift­ing, why hasn’t this been done.

He al­so con­tend­ed, for the sec­tor, it was not as easy as turn­ing a key and open­ing a busi­ness place.

“That is our con­cern be­cause even af­ter the Gov­ern­ment has rolled out phase six, the sec­tor would still be im­pact­ed by the need for phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing—gath­er­ings can­not be more than five per­sons. So af­ter the cri­sis, we will still have a cri­sis,” he lament­ed.

He re­it­er­at­ed the rip­pling ef­fect the sit­u­a­tion had on the sec­tor where many with­in the in­dus­try have and would con­tin­ue to be great­ly af­fect­ed.

TU­CO’s re­lease on Thurs­day said, “The peo­ple who are ac­tive­ly en­gaged in the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor and cre­ative arts are peo­ple too and sav­ing their liveli­hood is deeply and di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to sav­ing their lives. They have rent to pay, mort­gages, bank loans, chil­dren to mind and send to school and food to put on their ta­ble. Des­per­a­tion and dis­tress looms on the hori­zon as to the prospect of our na­tion’s cre­atives and en­ter­tain­ment prac­ti­tion­ers be­ing di­rect­ed to a place where they have to put on their mask to hide their face and fall in line for a ham­per or set up them­selves for a re­lief grant from the gov­ern­ment just to get through.”

Asked if TU­CO had in fact en­coun­tered artistes reach­ing out to the or­gan­i­sa­tion for any fi­nan­cial help at this time, Masim­ba said through the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s wel­fare com­mit­tee, TU­CO went to artistes who were in need and pro­vid­ed ham­pers as well as fi­nan­cial sup­port where need­ed.

He ex­plained, TU­CO had a data­base of its mem­bers and has al­ways sup­port­ed and met the needs of those mem­bers who were eco­nom­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly dis­tressed. So they would have had an idea of those who may have been in greater need dur­ing this time.

“We don’t want to see these artistes in a line round by Liv­ing Wa­ters, wait­ing… we don’t want to see that. That would have an im­pact up­on those who even have, so we want to main­tain the dig­ni­ty of these artistes from be­ing dis­graced,” said Masim­ba.

He said it should be clear­ly un­der­stood that even pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor and the cre­ative in­dus­tries, have been in a some­what un­der-fa­cil­i­tat­ed space. And the pan­dem­ic just mag­ni­fied this ug­ly truth.

“Now that we are talk­ing re­cov­ery and we are sup­posed to all be in this to­geth­er. There should be a spe­cif­ic type of frame­work that should en­cour­age the rekin­dling of the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor as a valid in­dus­try, which makes a con­tin­u­ous con­tri­bu­tion to this coun­try’s GDP,” Masim­ba re­hashed.

Some in the sec­tor weigh in

Film mak­ers Col­lab­o­ra­tive of T&T (FILM­CO)

Speak­ing on be­half of FILM­CO, film, and screen­writer Danielle Di­ef­fen­thaller said it has been point­ing its mem­bers to the gov­ern­ment grants and in­cen­tives be­cause most of them who were al­ready suf­fer­ing from a lack of work we in even more dire straits now.

“We are cur­rent­ly work­ing out guide­lines to as­sist crews with go­ing back to work but the peren­ni­al prob­lem is a lack of fund­ing will still per­sist. The gov­ern­ment could fun­nel some funds to­ward the cre­ation of con­tent as they did in the past when the TTFC (T&T Film Com­pa­ny) ex­ist­ed. This could stim­u­late the sec­tor. (Film and tele­vi­sion specif­i­cal­ly) They could al­so con­tin­ue to li­cense lo­cal and re­gion­al pro­grammes for TTL (Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed), which was an­oth­er stim­u­lant. As we've seen con­tent is at a pre­mi­um now and we need to be in the game of con­tent cre­ation and dis­tri­b­u­tion. We are al­so work­ing on a hard­ship fund for our mem­bers.”

So­ca artiste Sher­win “Men­ace” Je­re­mi­ah

“This COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion af­fect­ed me in a se­ri­ous way like many in the mu­sic in­dus­try who de­pend on en­ter­tain­ment for most of their in­come. All shows can­celled for­eign and lo­cal­ly. On­ly time will tell when, or once things get bet­ter grad­u­al­ly artistes could get back on the road. Right now it has no ‘big man in the busi­ness or big man in the ting,’ be­cause every­body home no­body is spe­cial in this cri­sis…no­body big­ger than no­body. I would say though, it might be hard­er for some be­cause of not every artiste in the same sit­u­a­tion fi­nan­cial­ly. If peo­ple can't gath­er, we can't per­form live, dee­jays can't play to an emp­ty hall.”