Pan Trinbago threatens Tobago Carnival boycott over $1.7M debt

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

With just three weeks to go be­fore the fifth an­nu­al To­ba­go Car­ni­val, Pan Trin­ba­go has an­nounced it will boy­cott the fes­ti­val over out­stand­ing pay­ments to­talling $1.7 mil­lion.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore said the de­ci­sion was tak­en at a To­ba­go re­gion­al meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 1 and has the full back­ing of steel­bands in Trinidad.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ram­sey-Moore said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is still owed mon­ey for last year’s Pan Omega and Pan and Pow­der events. How­ev­er, while bands have al­ready be­gun prepa­ra­tions for Pan Omega 2026, sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 24, she said they are un­will­ing to per­form while out­stand­ing pay­ments re­main un­set­tled.

“Up to now, we have not fi­nalised the bal­ance of pay­ments to the bands that they have al­ready worked for, and they have not even be­gun to dis­cuss the bud­get for To­ba­go Panora­ma (Pan Omega) 2026,” she said.

Ram­sey-Moore de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as detri­men­tal to the steel­band move­ment, not­ing that bands on­ly re­ceived cheques for this year’s na­tion­al Panora­ma on Sun­day dur­ing Pan Trin­ba­go’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing.

“Bands are ask­ing, ‘Why so long?’ We need to sit down with both the Gov­ern­ment and the THA, along with the spe­cial-in­ter­est groups, to en­sure there is no re­cur­rence of this. It is un­for­tu­nate be­cause when you think of the en­tire steel­band move­ment and ecosys­tem, the tuners, arrangers and oth­er stake­hold­ers have all been wait­ing,” she said.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port from Trinidad-based bands, Ram­sey-Moore said sol­i­dar­i­ty was nev­er in ques­tion.

“The Trinidad bands are all mem­bers of Pan Trin­ba­go, and if your broth­er’s or sis­ter’s house is on fire, you have to wet yours. I don’t see Trinidad bands com­ing across to par­tic­i­pate. They will nev­er do such a thing,” she said.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion Zor­isha Hack­ett said ef­forts are con­tin­u­ing to clear out­stand­ing debts in­her­it­ed by the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion. She said when she as­sumed of­fice in Jan­u­ary, the com­mis­sion’s li­a­bil­i­ties stood at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $29 mil­lion.

“Through pri­ori­tis­ing and mak­ing tough de­ci­sions, we were able to get it to just un­der $10 mil­lion, and the work con­tin­ues to take it down to ze­ro,” she said.

Hack­ett said re­duc­ing the debt has been her pri­ma­ry fo­cus over the past nine months be­cause of the im­pact de­layed pay­ments have on in­di­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es and the wider To­ba­go econ­o­my.

“Be­cause I un­der­stand the im­pact these out­stand­ing pay­ments have on those who have al­ready done the work and are de­pend­ing on what is owed to them, as well as the wider eco­nom­ic rip­ple ef­fect that de­layed pay­ments can have across To­ba­go,” she said.

In a state­ment is­sued on Sun­day, the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion ac­knowl­edged its debt to Pan Trin­ba­go and said dis­cus­sions have been held with the pan fra­ter­ni­ty, the To­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), band­lead­ers and ser­vice providers.

The com­mis­sion said its records show a to­tal dis­burse­ment of $1.54 mil­lion to Pan Trin­ba­go, in­clud­ing $1.08 mil­lion re­lat­ing to Pan Omega 2025, as well as pay­ments for oth­er per­for­mances and ac­tiv­i­ties. It al­so high­light­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed to pan mu­si­cians through events such as the Blue Food Fes­ti­val, To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val and in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ments.

While recog­nis­ing the need to set­tle out­stand­ing bal­ances, the com­mis­sion said pay­ments re­main de­pen­dent on the re­lease of funds and in­di­cat­ed that an­oth­er phase of pay­ments is sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 9.

De­spite the stand­off, Ram­sey-Moore said she re­mains open to dis­cus­sions with the THA.

“I don’t think there will be Panora­ma, but at least there can be some pan in the car­ni­val if they are will­ing to have some dis­cus­sion,” she said.