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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Govt spends $100m for C2k11

by

20110305

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) has pumped a stag­ger­ing $100 mil­lion in­to C2K11. NCC chair­man Ken­ny de Sil­va said the mon­ey in­ject­ed is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate in ex­cess of $1 bil­lion in busi­ness for T&T, as our coun­try moves to make Car­ni­val a prof­itable and vi­able busi­ness. De Sil­va said ho­tels, restau­rants, sou­venir shops, air­lines and oth­er busi­ness­es would ben­e­fit from the stag­ing of the two-day fes­ti­val. "Car­ni­val gen­er­ates $1 bil­lion ac­cord­ing to a study un­der­tak­en a few years ago. It is quite pos­si­ble we could ex­ceed this fig­ure this year. There are dif­fer­ent spin offs from Car­ni­val." De Sil­va said Car­ni­val was one of the biggest tourism prod­ucts T&T was show­cas­ing, with thou­sands of vis­i­tors com­ing to our shores who will be car­ry­ing back the mes­sage of what we of­fer. Of the $100 mil­lion spent, de Sil­va said $45 mil­lion will be dis­trib­uted in prizes, $52 mil­lion went to­wards the build­ing of two stands at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, while the re­main­ing $3 mil­lion will be ex­pend­ed on se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, meals, re­fresh­ments and stipend for judges, con­struc­tion of the ven­dors' booths, set­ting up of a Car­ni­val vil­lage and prepa­ra­tion for all NCC's venues. De Sil­va said the NCC has en­sured that tax­pay­ers get their monies' worth. Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $130 mil­lion to NCC for 2011.

$2 mil­lion more for Grand Stand

De Sil­va ad­mit­ted there was cost over­run of $2 mil­lion with the con­struc­tion of the Grand Stand.

"I don't see any over­runs out­side of the de­fined bud­gets." De Sil­va ex­plained that the stands in the Sa­van­nah were sup­posed to cost $42 mil­lion plus VAT. "There may be a small over­run in the Grand Stand....maybe a five per cent, which is tol­er­a­ble. We are look­ing at $2 mil­lion. That is my es­ti­mate. We are yet to re­ceive the fi­nal fig­ure." Speak­ing at his NCC of­fice last Thurs­day, de Sil­va said NCC had al­ready re­tained the ser­vices of five se­cu­ri­ty firms to en­sure law and or­der.

High­er se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence for 2011

Hun­dreds of armed and un­armed se­cu­ri­ty guards, in­clud­ing K9 of­fi­cers, de Sil­va said, will be out in full force at all NCC's venues down­town and in San Fer­nan­do. The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, de Sil­va said, will be work­ing close­ly with the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, main­ly at Adam Smith and Vic­to­ria Squares, the Sa­van­nah, Down Town, Pic­cadil­ly Greens and Skin­ner's Park. Though the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers will be paid hourly rates rang­ing from $20 to $45, de Sil­va could not say how much this would cost tax­pay­ers, since this still had to be worked out by the se­cu­ri­ty firms and sub­mit­ted to his of­fice. "This year you will be see­ing a high­er pres­ence of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers when com­pared to pre­vi­ous years be­cause we ex­pect this Car­ni­val to be the biggest." Hun­dreds of Cepep work­ers will al­so be out on the streets from Fri­day to clean and clear dis­card­ed cos­tumes and lit­ter in a time­ly fash­ion.

Di­manche Gras ex­pect­ed to be sold out

De Sil­va said that by to­day 15,000 tick­ets priced be­tween $80 to $350 are ex­pect­ed to be sold out.

The Grand Stand can ac­com­mo­date 7,500 pa­trons, while North Stand can seat 8,000. "This Car­ni­val, peo­ple have shown a lev­el of en­thu­si­asm in pur­chas­ing tick­ets and en­quir­ing in­for­ma­tion about NCC's shows." De Sil­va said that for the 30 years he has been in­volved in Car­ni­val, this year peo­ple have been more zeal­ous and ex­cit­ed to be part of the ac­tion, es­pe­cial­ly since mas' has re­turned to the Sa­van­nah. De Sil­va as­sured that pa­trons will leave with a last­ing im­pres­sion when the Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ner walks away with his $2 mil­lion first prize.


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