Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pay­ments to more than 500 per­form­ers en­gaged in the Gov­ern­ment’s Car­ni­val Fla­va Vil­lage ini­tia­tive ranged from $700 to $60,000, with 90 per cent of artistes al­ready re­ceiv­ing pay­ment to date, Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin says.

Ben­jamin gave the up­date in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to queries from Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates on the Fla­va Vil­lage ini­tia­tive.

She said all pay­ment cat­e­gories are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by May 31.

Ben­jamin, cit­ing Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to in­vest­ing in T&T’s cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers, added that the ini­tia­tive is a flag­ship cul­tur­al ac­ti­va­tion that served as a hub for the dis­play and cel­e­bra­tion of in­dige­nous art forms.

“The Fla­va Vil­lage ini­tia­tive is a demon­stra­tion of this Gov­ern­ment’s in­vest­ment in the peo­ple who are the heart­beat of our Car­ni­val and our na­tion­al cul­ture. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly, over 500 per­form­ers, span­ning every tra­di­tion from ca­lyp­so to tam­boo—from steel­pan to moko jumbies—were giv­en a plat­form, an au­di­ence and crit­i­cal­ly fair com­pen­sa­tion for their craft....this in­clud­ed a host of artistes,” Ben­jamin said.

She said the names would be cir­cu­lat­ed in an ap­pen­dix.

The min­is­ter said the con­trac­tu­al amount for each en­gage­ment was de­ter­mined on the ba­sis of ne­go­ti­at­ed in­dus­try pric­ing and the du­ra­tion of the re­spec­tive per­for­mance.

“These ranges re­flect the es­tab­lished mar­ket rates for cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers in T&T and were ne­go­ti­at­ed ac­cord­ing­ly,” Ben­jamin added.

She told cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers that the Gov­ern­ment is ful­ly com­mit­ted to ho­n­our­ing every con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion aris­ing from the ini­tia­tive.

“Every per­former who ren­dered a ser­vice will be paid. Pay­ments un­der this ini­tia­tive are on­ly processed sub­se­quent to the com­ple­tion of each per­for­mance. That is the stan­dard and re­spon­si­ble ap­proach. Pay­ments to per­form­ers com­menced on Feb­ru­ary 5 and are on­go­ing.”

Ranges ap­plic­a­ble to each cat­e­go­ry of per­former are:

• Live bands—rang­ing from $20,000 to $60,000.

• Steel­bands—rang­ing from $12,000 to $60,000.

• Ca­lyp­so, so­ca, chut­ney and rap­so artistes per­form­ing with­out a live band—rang­ing from $1,500 to $40,000.

• Rhythm sec­tions, tas­sa groups and tam­boo bam­boo groups—rang­ing from $4,000 to $7,000.

• Disc jock­eys—rang­ing from $2,000 to $4,500.

• Hosts and mas­ters of cer­e­monies—rang­ing from $2,500 to $7,000

• Steel­pan soloists—rang­ing from $800 to $4,000.

• Tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters/ in­di­vid­ual char­ac­ters such as Baby­dolls—rang­ing at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $700 per in­di­vid­ual.

• Group en­gage­ments such as moko jumbies and blue dev­ils— rang­ing up to $5,000 per group.