For many cit­i­zens of this coun­try, both here and in the Di­as­po­ra, the in­ven­tion of the steel­pan from dis­card­ed oil drums in East Port-of-Spain more than 80 years ago has been a source of na­tion­al pride and iden­ti­ty, rank­ing high­ly among T&T's spec­tac­u­lar beau­ty queens, its bat­ting mae­stro, its Olympic gold medal­lists, world-class foot­ballers and No­bel prize-win­ning writ­ers.

The boast that the pan is the on­ly mu­si­cal in­stru­ment in­vent­ed in 20th cen­tu­ry trips eas­i­ly from the tongues of T&T na­tion­als, who are quick to im­bue it with the mys­tique of strug­gling to over­come class and racial prej­u­dices in its for­ma­tive days and be­ing trans­formed in­to a sym­bol of uni­ty and to­geth­er­ness.

If the steel­pan is a sym­bol of any­thing these days, it may be a re­minder to the peo­ple of this coun­try of their ten­den­cy to take for grant­ed those as­pects of lo­cal cul­ture that should be cher­ished, pro­mot­ed and well fund­ed, even in these times of eco­nom­ic de­cline and un­cer­tain­ty.

The fact that many of the over 7,000 pan­men and women in T&T still have not been ful­ly com­pen­sat­ed for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in Panora­ma 2016, near­ly 11 months af­ter that event was held, is a damn­ing in­dict­ment of the con­tin­u­ing poor or­gan­i­sa­tion of Car­ni­val and the scant re­gard with which the pan, and those who play it, are treat­ed these days.

There are sev­er­al rea­sons why this treat­ment of the steel­pan is par­tic­u­lar­ly galling.

First­ly, the steel­pan is T&T's na­tion­al in­stru­ment and this coun­try is one of the few glob­al­ly (along with Japan and Paraguay) where the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial­ly recog­nis­es a spe­cif­ic na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Sec­ond­ly, while T&T has suf­fered a sub­stan­tial de­cline in its to­tal rev­enue in the last two-and-a-half years, the $7.5 mil­lion that is paid to pan­men for their con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion is but a tiny frac­tion of the to­tal amount of mon­ey spent on Car­ni­val and an even small­er frac­tion of the coun­try's to­tal bud­get.

Third­ly, the $1,000 that each pan play­er is paid is but a to­ken for the long nights of prac­tice that must be un­der­tak­en by all par­tic­i­pants who con­tribute to their steel or­ches­tra mak­ing it to the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.

Fourth­ly, as one of T&T's na­tion­al em­blems–along with its flag, coat of arms, na­tion­al flower and na­tion­al birds–an ar­gu­ment can be made that the pan should en­joy the pro­tect­ed sta­tus of the Scar­let Ibis and Cocrico, which in the con­text of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment should mean that the al­lo­ca­tion for the pro­mo­tion of the steel­pan should be im­mune from the an­nu­al bud­get cy­cle.

In­deed, is there a good rea­son why the na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion–and all the el­e­ments as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and T&T's oth­er na­tion­al em­blems–should not be fund­ed di­rect­ly from the some of the in­ter­est gen­er­at­ed an­nu­al­ly by Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF)?

Af­ter all, as the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and as one of this coun­try's most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al cul­ture, the steel­pan per­fect­ly fits the de­f­i­n­i­tion of Her­itage, which is some­thing pre­cious and sig­nif­i­cant that is hand­ed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.

And, since the an­nu­al bud­get cy­cle seems to be a big part of the prob­lem of late pay­ment of pan­men, per­haps Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts, Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, should be at the fore­front of set­ting up a trust fund–sim­i­lar to the struc­ture that in­su­lates the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice–to pro­tect and pro­mote T&T's na­tion­al em­blems.