It is per­haps one of the more dis­turb­ing as­pects of the an­nu­al Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions that for all the mil­lions of tax­pay­ers' dol­lars al­lo­cat­ed to the spe­cial in­ter­est groups every year via the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), mount­ing debts and fi­nan­cial short­falls are a re­cur­ring theme for these en­ti­ties.

Since there is no doubt about the rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing po­ten­tial of this coun­try's biggest na­tion­al fes­ti­val, the con­tin­ued heavy de­pen­dence of these en­ti­ties on the Trea­sury and the ab­sence of trans­paren­cy in their fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, raise the ques­tion of why their op­er­a­tions are not sub­ject to much clos­er scruti­ny, in­clud­ing par­lia­men­tary over­sight.

At present, on­ly the op­er­a­tions of the NCC are ex­am­ined by a com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, it might be time to go one step fur­ther and make what­ev­er leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy ad­just­ments are need­ed for full, an­nu­al ac­count­abil­i­ty by the bod­ies that rep­re­sent ca­lyp­so, mas and pan.

The na­tion needs to hear much more about the op­er­a­tions of these groups, how they gen­er­ate rev­enue and their ef­forts to make good use of their bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions to ad­vance T&T's cul­tur­al agen­da and over­all de­vel­op­ment.

In­deed, reser­va­tions any­one might have had be­fore about the need for more ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy from the three in­ter­est groups should be dis­card­ed giv­en the fact that one them, Pan Trin­ba­go, is al­ready em­broiled in the first ma­jor pre-sea­son bac­cha­nal of Car­ni­val 2017. Since fi­nan­cial con­cerns are at the core of the con­tro­ver­sy shak­ing up the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty since ear­ly No­vem­ber, there should be swift in­ter­ven­tion by the NCC and Cul­ture Min­is­ter Nyan Gadb­sy-Dol­ly in the in­ter­est of T&T's tax­pay­ers.

Al­though fund­ing to the Car­ni­val bod­ies has been cut by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 per cent this year, the fact is that they are still col­lect­ing sub­stan­tial sums of mon­ey from a shrink­ing pool of na­tion­al rev­enue. Pan Trin­ba­go, for ex­am­ple, will get some $23 mil­lion, al­though that group has not ful­ly ac­count­ed for its 2016 ex­pen­di­ture.

The rum­blings from pan play­ers are get­ting in­creas­ing­ly stri­dent, with many ex­press­ing anger, frus­tra­tion and dis­plea­sure at the way the af­fairs of Pan Trin­ba­go are be­ing man­aged.

Mat­ters are like­ly to come to a head with­in the next few days. Pan mu­si­cians, who claim they have not been paid for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2016 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, will be pick­et­ing the of­fices of Pan Trin­ba­go to­day de­mand­ing the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az and his en­tire ex­ec­u­tive.

There are al­so threats of a boy­cott of Panora­ma 2017 and the stag­ing of an al­ter­na­tive pan event called Pan­drome.

In­deed, the pan body has been shroud­ed in a great deal of con­tro­ver­sy ever since for­mer vice pres­i­dent Bry­on Ser­rette, who re­signed from the or­gan­i­sa­tion on No­vem­ber 1, pub­licly ques­tioned fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions and claimed de­ci­sions and ac­tions had been tak­en with­out the knowl­edge of the group's cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive.

Those ques­tions and al­le­ga­tions have not yet been prop­er­ly ad­dressed by Mr Di­az, or any of mem­bers of his ex­ec­u­tive. There is al­so the mat­ter of the ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing of Pan Trin­ba­go in Port-of-Spain on De­cem­ber 28 which end­ed in dis­ar­ray.

Mr Di­az, who has been very eco­nom­i­cal with his re­spons­es to the con­cerns raised by dis­grun­tled pan men and oth­er con­cerned stake­hold­ers, needs to more ful­ly ex­plain the rea­son why the steel­band body is fac­ing mount­ing debts, why pan play­ers and ser­vice providers are still wait­ing to be paid–in some in­stances bills date back to 2014–and the steps that will be tak­en to re­turn the or­gan­i­sa­tion to op­ti­mal fi­nan­cial health.

What is par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ry­ing is that con­tro­ver­sies like the one cur­rent­ly em­broil­ing Pan Trin­ba­go have hap­pened many times be­fore with one or the oth­er of the Car­ni­val in­ter­est groups. This is a strong in­di­ca­tor of chron­ic de­fi­cien­cies in their op­er­at­ing sys­tems. It is time for a full, foren­sic ex­am­i­na­tion of how these en­ti­ties spend the na­tion's mon­ey.