I am confident that by now most are aware that my portrayal for the 2016 Conventional Individuals competition which was held on February 4 was debarred from competing due to my not having "registered" with the NCC, although I was registered with the NCBA for the said competition.
After deep reflection and consideration of all of the circumstances surrounding this most devastating experience, I have come to the decision that I am not going to let this matter rest until there is a suitable remedy for all of the sacrifices, psychological and emotional stress, embarrassment, belittlement, financial investment and overall disrespect for the culture of T&T.
I have participated in this particular competition since 2013 with significant success, culminating with a 4th place finish in the Female Individual of the Year 2015.
Using my collective experiences in this particular competition, I set out to produce a costume in 2016–The Book of Revelation–and present it in a way that would top all of my previous portrayals. I invested close to $15,000 in material, made personal sacrifices and asked my family to do the same. I had a song professionally mixed especially for the presentation and hired a special type of transportation.
It is indeed a bitter pill to swallow when at the end of it all, officials at the competition venue could only tell me that I was not registered with the NCC and as such my NCBA registration for the event was invalid and they "could do nothing" for me.
Out of compassion I was allowed to cross the stage making a "guest appearance." Furthermore, it is patently unprofessional for those said officials to allude to incompetence and dishonestly in the NCBA. But there are some critical questions that need to be answered though:
1. Was the NCC Conventional Individuals competition 2016 the same competition as the NCBA competition that I registered for in terms of categories, judging and format?
2. What rules did competitors in the NCC competition compete under?
3. Did I register for membership in the NCBA and (was supposed to) in the NCC respectively, or did I register to compete in a competition regardless of who was organising it?
4. When the NCBA organised and managed the event, was it doing so as an agent of the NCC?
5. If the NCBA organised and managed this competition which was in effect a NCC competition and the NCC decided to take control of it from the NCBA, why didn't the NCC just acquire the database of registered competitors from the NCBA?
6. If the NCC took over control, whose responsibility was it to properly communicate this development to the registrants with the NCBA?
7. If the NCBA registration period for the competition was closed, why have competitors reregister for the same competition?
8. Didn't the NCC anticipate situations such as mine?
9. If registration for the competition was free, why couldn't I be registered on the spot and be allowed to compete having already presented proof of registration with the NCBA?
Carisse Dedier