Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers are still wait­ing on prize mon­ey from the 2026 cel­e­bra­tions, even af­ter the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion says it has paid $4.55 mil­lion to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA); and now a Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ment to ad­dress the out­stand­ing pay­ments by the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber is ap­proach­ing.

TTC­BA pres­i­dent Mark Ayen said the $4.55 mil­lion does not rep­re­sent the full prize al­lo­ca­tion, ex­plain­ing that the NCC made pay­ments to the as­so­ci­a­tion for ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es as well as prizes.

The NCC paid the TTC­BA $850,000 on Jan­u­ary 21 for ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional sup­port for Car­ni­val 2026, Ayen said. On Feb­ru­ary 7, it paid an­oth­er $3 mil­lion as a part-pay­ment to­wards prizes. Ayen said that mon­ey was al­lo­cat­ed to the ju­nior Car­ni­val prize struc­ture.

“So that in it­self says that they are aware that that is a part pay­ment of prize monies, not the full pay­ment,” Ayen said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

Ayen said the prize al­lo­ca­tion for se­nior Car­ni­val is rough­ly $9 mil­lion.

“The NCC is well aware that there is a re­main­der of the mon­ey for al­lo­ca­tion for prizes. And as soon as it comes to us, we ad­min­is­ter that to the win­ners,” he said.

In a Sep­tem­ber 2 re­sponse to a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest, the NCC said it had paid the TTC­BA $4,550,050 for Car­ni­val 2026.

It said the pay­ments sup­port­ed prize mon­ey as well as the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional func­tions. The com­mis­sion said it does not pay adult or chil­dren’s Car­ni­val bands, mas or­gan­i­sa­tions or as­so­ci­a­tions di­rect­ly, but pro­vides sub­ven­tions to the TTC­BA based on pro­pos­als or re­quests from the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent that are ap­proved by the NCC board.

Ayen said the TTC­BA sub­mits an an­nu­al bud­get to the NCC set­ting out its ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es and rec­om­mend­ed prize struc­ture.

The NCC said it did not have a break­down of pay­ments to in­di­vid­ual bands.

It al­so said it was not privy to cor­re­spon­dence be­tween the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers about out­stand­ing pay­ments and there­fore could not pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on amounts owed, rea­sons for the de­lays or an­tic­i­pat­ed pay­ment dates.

Sep­tem­ber promise

Ayen said the TTC­BA raised the out­stand­ing pay­ments with Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin at a Ju­ly 5 meet­ing. He said Ben­jamin was told how much the as­so­ci­a­tion had re­ceived and what re­mained out­stand­ing be­fore com­mit­ting to have the pay­ments ad­dressed by the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber.

“The min­is­ter gave a com­mit­ment at that meet­ing on the 5th of Ju­ly of the TTC­BA that she is com­mit­ted to hav­ing these things ad­dressed, these pay­ments ad­dressed by the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber,” Ayen said.

Asked whether he was still ex­pect­ing the com­mit­ment to be ho­n­oured, Ayen said: “Yes.”

He said the TTC­BA has al­so writ­ten to the NCC’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and chair­man about the out­stand­ing pay­ments.

The Sep­tem­ber dead­line is now ap­proach­ing as Car­ni­val 2027 prepa­ra­tions gath­er pace.

Stake­hold­er: The worst Car­ni­val in 14 years

Some band­lead­ers said they re­main un­paid and that the de­lays are af­fect­ing their abil­i­ty to pre­pare for Car­ni­val, sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 8 and 9, 2027.

A band­leader first con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia on Ju­ly 3, when we learned of a TTC­BA meet­ing at which mem­bers were told pay­ments were ex­pect­ed by the end of Sep­tem­ber. The stake­hold­er warned that the de­lay could af­fect prepa­ra­tions for the next Car­ni­val.

On Sep­tem­ber 3, the same stake­hold­er con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia again, say­ing there had still been no word on prize pay­ments for large bands, de­spite the Sep­tem­ber pay­ment ex­pec­ta­tion.

“Eight months af­ter [Car­ni­val],” the stake­hold­er said, while point­ing out that on­ly four months re­mained be­fore the next Car­ni­val.

The stake­hold­er said band­lead­ers were re­luc­tant to speak pub­licly be­cause they feared be­ing vic­timised.

An­oth­er mes­sage de­scribed the fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion as the worst the per­son had ex­pe­ri­enced in 14 years in the Car­ni­val in­dus­try.

Ayen: Give mas peo­ple their re­spect

Ayen said the TTC­BA un­der­stood the dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing its mem­bers and re­mained com­mit­ted to se­cur­ing the out­stand­ing pay­ments.

“I com­mit to them that we have this is­sue at the front burn­er,” he said. “I con­tin­ue to reach out to the min­is­ter and our chair­man and I will en­sure that the monies owed to them will be re­ceived.”

He al­so ap­pealed to those re­spon­si­ble for fund­ing Car­ni­val to recog­nise the con­tri­bu­tion of the mas fra­ter­ni­ty.

“If I could ask and con­tin­ue to ask is that those in au­thor­i­ty, please give the mas peo­ple the re­spect that they de­serve,” Ayen said.

“They are the mak­ers of a lot of the Car­ni­val. The mas con­tin­ues to move a lot of Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val.”

No re­sponse from min­istry

With the min­is­ter’s mid-Sep­tem­ber com­mit­ment now ap­proach­ing, Guardian Me­dia again con­tact­ed the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment ask­ing whether the $4.55 mil­lion was the full amount the NCC was al­lo­cat­ed to pro­vide for Car­ni­val 2026, whether fur­ther mon­ey re­mained out­stand­ing to the NCC and TTC­BA and how much re­mained un­paid to Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers.

The min­istry was al­so asked how many re­cip­i­ents were af­fect­ed, what cat­e­gories of pay­ments re­mained out­stand­ing, who was ul­ti­mate­ly re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing stake­hold­ers re­ceived mon­ey owed to them, and whether ad­di­tion­al fund­ing would be al­lo­cat­ed for Car­ni­val prize mon­ey in the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get.

The min­istry had not re­spond­ed up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.