Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent 

To­ba­go’s Steel Xplo­sion steel­band is in cri­sis just weeks be­fore To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val Panora­ma, af­ter the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) end­ed its spon­sor­ship of the band and two oth­ers on Thurs­day.

The spon­sor­ship cut al­so hit Cou­va Joy­lan­ders and La Brea Nightin­gales. Steel Xplo­sion’s mem­bers said they were shocked by the sud­den move, in the midst of its prepa­ra­tions for the Pan Omega com­pe­ti­tion on Oc­to­ber 18 for the is­land’s Car­ni­val sea­son. 

Kym­balie Car­ring­ton-Scope, the ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Steel Xplo­sion, said the no­tice came with no warn­ing.

“Harsh, with­out any warn­ing, no dis­cus­sion. A let­ter came to us, a phone call and a let­ter in the email, giv­ing us sev­en days. No kind of re­al rea­son … very dis­ap­point­ing and dis­heart­en­ing and dis­cour­ag­ing for the mem­ber­ship.”

The move comes at a crit­i­cal time, as Steel Xplo­sion is prepar­ing for both the To­ba­go Panora­ma and the Na­tion­al Panora­ma in Trinidad. Car­ring­ton-Scope said the cost is heavy.

“To take a band to Panora­ma, it will cost you more than 300,000 or close to 350,000. Be­cause that would in­clude uni­forms, pre­lims, semis, fi­nals, dec­o­ra­tions, a ranger, drill mas­ter, tuner, trans­port, all the works.”

The band is now try­ing to raise mon­ey through fundrais­ers and by send­ing let­ters for help. Car­ring­ton-Scope said Steel Xplo­sion al­ways worked well with NGC.

“I could say the band has been work­ing very hard with the spon­sor, every­thing that they ask, that they re­quire, with all the pro­grammes ...it’s an ex­cel­lent band. So it’s very dis­ap­point­ing and dis­heart­en­ing.”

Car­ring­ton-Scope said many of the band’s mem­bers were un­der 20.

Steel Xplo­sion has been com­pet­ing at Panora­ma since 2007. The band was formed in 2001 by the late Iran “Deuce” An­tho­ny, a well-known tuner and pan mak­er who died last year. Over the years, the band has reached Panora­ma fi­nals and se­mi-fi­nals. It now has about 35 core mem­bers and up to 90 play­ers for Panora­ma.

The de­ci­sion by NGC drew strong crit­i­cism, with for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young yes­ter­day con­demn­ing the move.

“The ter­mi­na­tion of spon­sor­ship of steel­bands by the Gov­ern­ment is un­jus­ti­fi­able and un­for­giv­able. The pos­i­tive ben­e­fits of a steel­band are wide-rang­ing and valu­able,” he said.

He added, “The steel pan move­ment should be cher­ished, pro­mot­ed and pro­tect­ed. I stand in full sup­port of our steel­pan­fra­ter­ni­ty and the steel­band com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go and call up­on NGC and the gov­ern­ment to re­verse this de­ci­sion.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin said talks were on­go­ing with Pan Trin­ba­go and NGC to find a way for­ward. She promised that the Gov­ern­ment would safe­guard young steel­pan play­ers, and Gov­ern­ment sup­port for steel­pan re­mained a pri­or­i­ty.

“Pro­tect­ing and em­pow­er­ing our youth re­mains a cen­tral pri­or­i­ty of this gov­ern­ment. As such, the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment will do every­thing with­in its re­mit to safe­guard their de­vel­op­ment and en­sure that their in­volve­ment in the Steel­pan move­ment con­tin­ues to re­ceive mean­ing­ful sup­port,” the state­ment said.

De­spite the chal­lenges, Steel Xplo­sion says it will still try to com­pete. Car­ring­ton-Scope said the fo­cus is to find enough mon­ey be­fore the sea­son starts. “Once we get the fund­ing by ear­ly Jan­u­ary or late De­cem­ber, just for the (na­tion­al) panora­ma sea­son… af­ter the panora­ma sea­son, we could sort every­thing else out. But the main fo­cus is try­ing to get some fund­ing to add to what we al­ready have to take the band to Panora­ma.”

Steel Xplo­sion is now call­ing for help from cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go and from the com­mu­ni­ty, as it fights to keep its play­ers on stage when the is­land’s panora­ma be­gins next month.