Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar

And again the spec­ta­cle of Car­ni­val win­ing back on the pub­lic purse cross­es the stage. Last week, the pa­pers re­port­ed $190 mil­lion was to be poured in­to the bot­tom­less Car­ni­val pit. But the re­al news was that more than half ($115 mil­lion) was to set­tle debts from the pre­vi­ous two years. And none of the jour­nal­ist-feters asked: What about the $249 mil­lion from last year, and the $200 mil­lion the year be­fore that? And the hun­dreds of mil­lions from the decade be­fore that? Where the mon­ey gorn?

This is not a fete in here, it's a heist. Even be­fore this year's Car­ni­val wel­fare grant was an­nounced, the pro­mot­ers of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch (William Munro et al) were on the CNC3 morn­ing show, say­ing ISM cost $30 mil­lion to stage, and how the gov­ern­ment should pick up the tab. Not to be out­done, George Singh, the Chut­ney So­ca pro­mot­er, came out swing­ing: Wha'ppen, all you ent like In­di­an or wot? The gub­ba­ment ent want to give him none of the $15 mil­lion his show need­ed. (Both got mil­lions.)

But why, the feck­less­ly fis­cal­ly fas­tid­i­ous might ask, should they need gub­ba­ment mon­ey? If these events are so big, why don't they pay their own way? An­swer–wait for it–the gov­ern­ment's in­vest­ment brings back mon­strous fi­nan­cial re­turns! And al­so, is de cult-yere, and you cyar put a price on dat!

But in the non-crack-smok­ing world, ques­tions arise. The first ques­tion is: Proof? Au­dit­ed ac­counts? A ver­i­fi­able study show­ing that all the mon­ey pumped in­to Car­ni­val brings re­turns?

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers