Carnival stakeholders slam plans for ”photo op” cheque distribution

Ke­jan Haynes

Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers ap­pear set to fi­nal­ly re­ceive the prize mon­ey owed to them from the 2026 cel­e­bra­tions, but some are tak­ing is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to dis­trib­ute the pay­ments at a cer­e­mo­ny.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) pres­i­dent Mark Ayen said he re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion from the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment on Mon­day af­ter­noon to at­tend a cheque dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Ayen wel­comed the move­ment to­wards pay­ing the out­stand­ing prize mon­ey, but said the oc­ca­sion should not be­come a pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“A pho­to-op will NOT rewrite the wrongs, the de­lays or the dis­re­spect ex­pe­ri­enced by Mas peo­ple,” Ayen said in a state­ment.

He said his pri­or­i­ty was for mem­bers of the mas fra­ter­ni­ty to re­ceive the mon­ey owed to them.

“This should NOT be a mo­ment for pho­to ops! It is about our peo­ple fi­nal­ly re­ceiv­ing what is due to them,” he said.

Ayen said fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the prize-giv­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion would be pro­vid­ed to his mem­bers.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore al­so crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion to have re­cip­i­ents re­turn on Wednes­day for what she de­scribed as an op­tics ex­er­cise.

Ram­sey-Moore said she went to col­lect the steel­bands’ prize mon­ey on Mon­day but was un­able to do so.

“Blocked to­day!!! Come back Wednes­day for pic­tures,” she said in a so­cial me­dia post.

She ques­tioned why the cheques could not have been de­posit­ed im­me­di­ate­ly, ar­gu­ing that re­cip­i­ents had al­ready wait­ed months for mon­ey earned from the 2026 Car­ni­val.

“Wast­ed days for cheque clear­ance when cheque could have been de­posit­ed to­day,” she said.

Ram­sey-Moore al­so ques­tioned the need for a cer­e­mo­ny to dis­trib­ute prize mon­ey.

“Since when cer­e­mo­ny for prize cheque. Nev­er hap­pened be­fore,” she said.

Two weeks ago Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers were still await­ing over four mil­lion dol­lars in prize mon­ey. How­ev­er there was com­mit­ment from Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin to have out­stand­ing pay­ments ad­dressed by the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber.

The NCC said in re­sponse to a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest that it had paid $4.55 mil­lion to the TTC­BA for Car­ni­val 2026. How­ev­er, Ayen said that fig­ure in­clud­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es and a $3 mil­lion part-pay­ment to­wards the ju­nior Car­ni­val prize struc­ture.

He said the se­nior Car­ni­val prize al­lo­ca­tion was rough­ly $9 mil­lion and that the TTC­BA was still await­ing out­stand­ing funds.

At the time of that re­port, the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment had not re­spond­ed to ques­tions about how much re­mained out­stand­ing, how many re­cip­i­ents were af­fect­ed or when the pay­ments would be made.

The min­istry had al­so been asked about re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers re­ceived the mon­ey owed to them.

As of Tues­day morn­ing, there has been no fur­ther up­date from the min­istry on the out­stand­ing prize pay­ments or Wednes­day’s planned cheque dis­tri­b­u­tion.