Minister of the Arts and Multiculturalism Dr Lincoln Douglas announced last week that the Government would be spending at least $202 million on Carnival this year, a sum that's meant to clear outstanding debts owed by the National Carnival Commission to its contractors since 2010 and to fund the activities of 2014.The NCC back pay for contract work between 2010 and 2012 will run to $115 million, and the Chutney Soca Monarch and International Soca Monarch competitions will get $11.95 million in prize money.
The current Carnival will get funding to the tune of $75 million, a figure that will be distributed to the major stakeholders of Carnival operating under the umbrella of the NCC, Tuco, the NCBA and Pan Trinbago, with a drizzle going to the 52 regional Carnival groups that keep the festival alive outside of Port-of-Spain.
Dr Douglas' only stated reservation, after announcing this major dispensing of public funds, was to express some personal concern about the content and quality of the songs in the two Soca Monarch competitions, in response to which he offered the rather vague promise that the ministry would be "working with the producers and the artistes themselves to increase the quality of the show."
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