Gail Alexan­der

The reign­ing So­ca Monarch and Road March King Machel Mon­tano along with Denyse Plum­mer and cap­tains of lo­cal in­dus­try will ac­com­pa­ny Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to Lon­don to­day to show­case T&T dur­ing a week of Com­mon­wealth en­gage­ments. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the cur­rent Com­mon­wealth chair­man. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan de­tailed the trip in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. He said Gov­ern­ment was not pay­ing for lo­cal artistes and busi­ness­men who are un­der­tak­ing the trip. The T&T team leaves to­day for a week of en­gage­ments start­ing to­mor­row to mark the an­nu­al Com­mon­wealth Week ac­tiv­i­ties. The trip con­cludes March 21. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will at­tend var­i­ous en­gage­ments in­clud­ing launch­ing the Caribbean Busi­ness Fo­rum be­ing host­ed by T&T over June 13- 14.

Aimed at at­tract­ing new busi­ness to T&T, the fo­rum will in­volve Com­mon­wealth and Amer­i­c­as busi­ness in­put. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­tin­gent for the Lon­don trip in­cludes Ram­bachan, Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz, Cul­ture Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma. Ram­bachan said Shar­ma would be at­tend­ing a Com­mon­wealth Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment meet­ing. Ram­bachan said the PM's post as Com­mon­wealth chair­man pro­vides T&T with a "gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­crease glob­al knowl­edge about T&T" plus as­sume lead­er­ship in col­lab­o­rat­ing with ma­jor mul­ti­lat­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The theme of this year's Com­mon­wealth Week is "Women as Agents of Change".

One of the high­lights of the Lon­don en­gage­ment is Mon­day's Com­mon­wealth Day Ob­ser­vance cer­e­mo­ny at West­min­ster Abbey at­tend­ed by the Queen, Com­mon­wealth lead­ers and dig­ni­taries from around the world.

Ram­bachan said Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as Com­mon­wealth chair­man, was in­vit­ed to nom­i­nate a lo­cal fe­male artiste to per­form at the cer­e­mo­ny. He said the in­vi­ta­tion is a first and will pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant boost to T&T's mu­sic and cre­ative in­dus­tries. Ram­bachan added: "The coun­try, and par­tic­u­lar­ly our lo­cal mu­si­cal and cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty, would be hap­py to know that Denyse Plum­mer will sing at West­min­ster Abbey." Ram­bachan said Gov­ern­ment would al­so look to the "wealth of un­tapped po­ten­tial for Car­ni­val" and high­ly lu­cra­tive busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties and seek to max­imise pos­si­bil­i­ties to ex­port lo­cal mu­sic and Car­ni­val re­lat­ed fash­ion and cel­e­bra­tions. "For too long the Car­ni­val in­dus­try and its sub­sec­tors have re­mained fair­ly lim­it­ed to re­gion­al bound­aries of the Caribbean," Ram­bachan added.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Cul­ture Min­is­ter Pe­ters would lead Plum­mer, Mon­tano, Patrice Roberts, Ker­nel Roberts and young­sters Timel Ri­vas and Pre­na­va Ma­haraj as cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors.

Ram­bachan said those artistes and oth­ers would rep­re­sent T&T at busi­ness, tourism and cul­tur­al pro­mo­tion­al events and give se­lect per­for­mances to show­case T&T's car­ni­val in­dus­try and mu­sic.

Ram­bachan said: "Pri­vate spon­sor­ship has been se­cured and no Gov­ern­ment fund­ing has been pro­vid­ed to the cul­tur­al con­tin­gent trav­el­ling to the UK....gov­ern­ment is not pay­ing for the artistes and their tech­ni­cal sup­port per­son­nel. These costs are met by pri­vate spon­sor­ship which does not in­clude any state com­pa­ny."

Al­so pay­ing their own way are the 16 busi­ness lead­ers who are part of the del­e­ga­tion, Ram­bachan con­firmed. Busi­ness­men would net­work with UK and oth­er busi­ness lead­ers from the Com­mon­wealth.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives come from the TT Cham­ber, man­u­fac­tur­ing, con­struc­tion, bank­ing, en­ter­tain­ment and ho­tel sec­tors. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an will act as Prime Min­is­ter in Per­sad- Bisses­sar's ten-day ab­sence.

PM's Lon­don sched­ule

• March 13 - Roy­al Com­mon­wealth So­ci­ety din­ner for High Com­mis­sion­ers mark­ing start of Com­mon­wealth Week.

• March 14 - Mul­ti­faith gath­er­ing at West­min­ster Abbey, con­fer­ence on ed­u­cat­ing women, re­cep­tion by Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kam­lesh Shar­ma, youth fo­rum.

• Brief­ing by CSG Shar­ma on the up­com­ing CHOGM in Aus­tralia,

• Launch of the PM's Chil­dren's Life Fund in UK

• Meet­ing, con­fer­ences with In­dia Pres­i­dent So­nia Gand­hi.

• Com­mon­wealth Lo­cal Gov­er­ment fo­rum in Wales.

• Meet­ing with Ki­er Starmer, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and Head of the UK's Crown Pros­e­cu­tion ser­vice on the jus­tice sys­tem

• Meet­ing with Frank Chap­man, CEO of British Gas on fur­ther in­vest­ment for T&T

• Meet­ing with UK at­tor­ney Cherie Blair, wife of for­mer UK PM Tony Blair, on Blair's Foun­da­tion for Women.

• Caribbean In­vest­ment Fo­rum.