Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Arts and Mu­til-cul­tur­al­ism, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, says he will not re­scind his de­ci­sion to im­pose a 2,000 per cent tax on im­port­ed Car­ni­val cos­tumes. He is, how­ev­er, will­ing to re­duce tar­iffs on raw ma­te­ri­als to fa­cil­i­tate lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing of cos­tumes. Speak­ing to re­porters at the launch of the Kaiso Show­case tent at the Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day night, Pe­ters said it was un­fair that for­eign ex­change was go­ing to coun­tries like In­dia and Chi­na through mass im­por­ta­tion of com­plet­ed cos­tumes. While hun­dreds of lo­cals are clam­our­ing for jobs, Pe­ters point­ed out, some busi­ness­men were en­gag­ing in im­por­ta­tion rather than lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Asked whether he in­tend­ed to meet with the busi­ness­men to re­con­sid­er his pro­pos­al, Pe­ters said if he did, the price hike would be more than 2,000 per cent. "I don't want them bring­ing any cos­tumes in the coun­try be­cause this is T&T Car­ni­val and we just can­not be spend­ing our for­eign ex­change to grandeur some­body else's coun­try when our peo­ple here are suf­fer­ing," Pe­ters said. Com­ment­ing on high un­em­ploy­ment in T&T, Pe­ters not­ed: "We have a lot of young peo­ple here who need jobs. There are al­so lots of peo­ple here who want to learn how to make the very mas that they are mak­ing in In­dia and Chi­na."

Pe­ters added: "I don't mind re­duc­ing the tar­iffs on raw ma­te­ri­als so that our coun­try will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make the mas, but I will not en­cour­age im­por­ta­tion of en­tire cos­tumes. "It is about mak­ing our mas right here. T&T must be a mas ex­port­ing coun­try and not a mas im­port­ing coun­try. There are lots of skilled peo­ple here who can help with this." Over the past week, busi­ness peo­ple, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA), have been com­plain­ing that labour prob­lems will im­pede the man­u­fac­tur­ing of lo­cal cos­tumes. Of­fi­cials said lo­cal and im­port­ed cos­tumes could co-ex­ist and they called for a meet­ing with Pe­ters to dis­cuss the is­sue.