Charles Kong Soo

Pan in­ven­tor Jo­mo Wah­tuse wants the Gov­ern­ment to re­voke the na­tion's high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) giv­en to G-Pan patent hold­er Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland."The Gov­ern­ment should do a foren­sic au­dit on the monies spent on the de­vel­op­ment of the G-Pan, and more so in­ves­ti­gate what was the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in award­ing the na­tion's high­est ho­n­our to Pro­fes­sor Copeland," Wah­tuse said."If a rea­son­able ex­pla­na­tion can­not be found, his award should be re­voked be­cause that is an em­bar­rass­ment to the en­tire pan move­ment, who to date haven't had the guts to show their con­dem­na­tion of it."On Ju­ly 8, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment was tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against Copeland, chair­man of the Steel­pan Ini­tia­tive Com­mit­tee (SIC) and Steel­pan Ini­tia­tive project (SIP), and three as­so­ciates for reg­is­ter­ing the Per­cus­sive Har­mon­ic In­stru­ment (PHI) pan as their own, and for prof­it­ing from sales of the G-pan.Ram­lo­gan said that the Gov­ern­ment was en­ti­tled to share in the prof­its, since it had spent $34.5 mil­lion in re­search and de­vel­op­ment on Copeland and his as­so­ciates' in­ven­tions.

Wah­tuse, 76, is a re­tired air­craft en­gi­neer and pro­lif­ic in­ven­tor who de­vel­oped sev­er­al pan in­stru­ments such as the Guin­ness World Record-break­ing for the first and largest el­lip­ti­cal in­stru­ment, the jo­mo­line, the mane­tone, a pan with a de­tach­able face, Ven­turi elec­tron­ic pan, xy­lopan and a col­lapsi­ble pan stand. He said the G-Pan scan­dal be­gan when for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning took it on his own to award Copeland with the high­est award of the coun­try."That was an in­sult to the whole pan fra­ter­ni­ty," he said."Copeland is not even a pan tuner," Wah­tuse re­vealed."To me that was a slap in face to all the pan­men and tuners who spent so many count­less hours and sac­ri­fice in a most self­less way in mak­ing this in­stru­ment what it is to­day."Wah­tuse cit­ed sev­er­al pi­o­neers, whom he felt were more de­serv­ing of recog­ni­tion for their in­no­va­tions and in­ven­tions in the de­vel­op­ment of pan. These in­clud­ed El­lie Man­nette, An­tho­ny Williams, Bertie Mar­shall and Den­zil "Dimes" Fer­nan­dez. He be­moaned that none of their names were etched on a patent.

Pan in­ven­tors

El­lie Man­nette was the first to sink a pan, groove, in­crease its notes from 13 to 19, add raised notes, and the first man to put rub­ber on pan sticks.Tony Williams in­vent­ed the rev­o­lu­tion­ary spi­der pan with its fourths and fifths notes, and the jum­bo pan.He was the first band leader to have pans trans­port­ed on wheels, while be­ing played on the road, in­stead of hav­ing them slung from around the neck with straps.Bertie Mar­shall cre­at­ed the "dou­ble sec­onds" pan, the am­pli­fied pan and the "Berti­phone" pan.Den­zil "Dimes" Fer­nan­dez in­vent­ed the Bore Pan, char­ac­terised by the bor­ing of small punc­ture holes in the pan.It is Tony Williams' fourths and fifths pat­tern of notes lay­out on the pan which was used by Copeland on the G Pan," Wah­tuse re­vealed."I was there when Tony Williams was mak­ing G-pan decades ago. He was the first man who made the first large in­stru­ment in the 70s."When one per­son comes with his de­gree, gets the high­est award, plus monies and lit­er­al­ly pla­gia­ris­es all these peo­ple's In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty and al­so walks away with a patent, it is so dis­heart­en­ing.

"It is some­thing bor­der­ing on sheer dis­hon­esty when such peo­ple as Ji­mi Phillip and oth­er tuners, who were ac­tu­al­ly in­volved in the cre­ation of the G-Pan, their names have not even been men­tioned, let alone were sig­na­to­ries to the patent doc­u­ment."The tuners and oth­ers over the years have brought the in­stru­ment to the stage of ex­cel­lence it is to­day through toil and sac­ri­fice."Wah­tuse asked if any­one could re­call an oc­ca­sion when the pro­fes­sors and high in­tel­lec­tu­als at the uni­ver­si­ty ever as­sist­ed or passed on in­for­ma­tion to the tuners that could have as­sist­ed them in any way?With no Gov­ern­ment fund­ing, but by dogged de­ter­mi­na­tion and sheer per­son­al sac­ri­fice Wah­tuse is curent­ly work­ing on his lat­est in­ven­tion, an am­pli­fied elec­tron­ic in­stru­ment us­ing mon­ey from his mod­est pen­sion.