An­na-Lisa Paul

New­ly-crowned ex­tem­po champ and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­ster Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters yes­ter­day ac­cept­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the al­leged mis­man­age­ment of the econ­o­my dur­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship term.

Pe­ters, who fell out with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress af­ter he was not se­lect­ed to con­test the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy, said every­one had to share the blame–him­self in­clud­ed–for spend­ing the "coun­try's mon­ey like crazy."

He was re­spond­ing to ques­tions fol­low­ing the 2016 draw for po­si­tions in to­mor­row's fi­nal of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, which will be held at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The draw took place at the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion's (Tu­co) Kaiso House.

At the se­mi-fi­nals held at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Jan­u­ary 23, Pe­ters' per­for­mance drew some ap­plause but plen­ty toi­let pa­per wav­ing from the au­di­ence.

Pe­ters said: "I am not blam­ing any­body. I am blam­ing every­body in­clud­ing my­self. All of us, be­cause some peo­ple want to say this one do that and the oth­er one do that, but we all spend the coun­try's mon­ey like crazy.

"Some peo­ple would say the gov­ern­ment do that, but who did the gov­ern­ment give the mon­ey to?" he asked, adding: "Those same peo­ple who com­plain­ing now, they get free thing here, free thing there. Free­ness. Come to work and don't go to work. They come to work and eh do what they sup­posed to do when they even there, and them same peo­ple com­plain­ing now about the mon­ey, and this one waste the mon­ey. We all waste the mon­ey. We all do the things that we do and that is what is un­for­tu­nate about this whole thing."

Con­fi­dent about his com­po­si­tions ahead of to­mor­row's fi­nal, Pe­ters said he had not done much prepar­ing.

He said: "I am al­ready pre­pared, I wrote my songs. I sang my songs. The judges came, they saw me, they se­lect­ed me and I am go­ing to the Sa­van­nah just the way I am. I don't pre­pare for any­thing. I put my clothes on and go and sing."

Asked how he felt to be singing in po­si­tion num­ber five, Pe­ters said his wish came true when he pulled that num­ber.

"I came here want­i­ng po­si­tion num­ber five be­cause I just like it," he said, adding: "It is a good place to sing. You get a good feel some­where be­tween there as to what is hap­pen­ing and the mood of the peo­ple."

Again ex­press­ing con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty, Pe­ters said: "I am al­ways con­fi­dent in any­thing I do. My con­fi­dence is not eas­i­ly shat­tered."

Pressed to say if he had any sur­pris­es planned for the au­di­ence, Pe­ters said: "I place the con­fi­dence in my songs so that is why I go on stage with­out any­body. I don't be­lieve in props."

"I re­al­ly be­lieve that should be a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry called vi­su­al aid or some­thing be­cause that is not pre­sen­ta­tion, that is a dif­fer­ent thing. If you write a song and every time you have to go on stage to sing it, you have to car­ry some­thing to de­pict it, then some­thing is wrong with that song as far as I am con­cerned."

How­ev­er, he went on to de­scribe his fel­low com­peti­tors as "good."

"I think they are all good peo­ple and good en­ter­tain­ers and singers. The young ones that are com­ing up and we have some vet­er­ans who are test­ed and proven, so we know every­body there, every shad­ow is a gun­man."

OR­DER OF AP­PEAR­ANCE

1 Mar­sha Clifton (La­dy Adan­na)

2 Vic­to­ria Coop­er-Rahim (Queen Vic­to­ria)

3 Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool (Chalk­dust)

4 Karene As­che

5 Win­ston Pe­ters (Gyp­sy)

6 Car­los James (Skatie)

7 Selvon Noel (Mis­tah Shak)

8 We­st­on Rawl­ins (Cro Cro)

9 De­von Seale

10 Heather Mac In­tosh

11 Helon Fran­cis

12 Rod­er­ick Gor­don (Chuck) (2015 Monarch)