The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) is al­lo­cat­ing a mere $750,000 to the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion to run Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in the south­ern city.

While San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris says that $1.5 mil­lion to $2 mil­lion would have been suf­fi­cient to ex­e­cute their plans, he ac­knowl­edges that the al­lo­ca­tion took in­to ac­count the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion of T&T, re­quir­ing a bal­anced and cre­ative ap­proach. He was speak­ing to re­porters at Skin­ner Park yes­ter­day, where he ad­dressed teach­ers at a re­ju­ve­na­tion work­shop ahead of the Ole Mas Com­pe­ti­tion at South Park Mall next week.

The work­shop aimed to teach the younger gen­er­a­tion about satire and so­cial com­men­tary as in­te­gral as­pects of the ole mas art form.

The al­lo­ca­tion re­mains the same as last year, with most of it des­ig­nat­ed for prizes, while a small­er por­tion will be spent on in­fra­struc­ture.

“NCC told us, more or less, that we have to be cre­ative, and in be­ing cre­ative, what we must do is find ways of mar­ket­ing San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val and de­riv­ing our own in­come from the Car­ni­val. There­fore, just as I stat­ed at the launch, we have a mar­ket­ing and PR team that is as­sist­ing us,” Par­ris said.

He not­ed that the City Cor­po­ra­tion had so far man­aged to raise $250,000 in do­na­tions from cor­po­rate cit­i­zens, with ad­di­tion­al funds still com­ing in. The team has al­so gen­er­at­ed in­ter­est in rais­ing rev­enue through ad­ver­tis­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly by rent­ing ad­ver­tis­ing space on the Skin­ner Park wall. The SFCC plans to of­fer a year­ly pack­age to ad­ver­tis­ers.

“If you think about the changes in lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form, cor­po­ra­tions have to be more cre­ative in find­ing ways to raise rev­enue, and we see this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so,” he added. “We can­not de­pend on the gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing sub­ven­tions be­cause every cent giv­en is ac­count­ed for.”

Among the im­prove­ments be­ing pur­sued is the brand­ing of San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val as the safer Car­ni­val—an as­ser­tion Par­ris said no one can dis­pute. Par­ris high­light­ed that San Fer­nan­do host­ed the coun­try’s largest J’Ou­vert and that there were fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment.

While dis­cus­sions about in­stalling a stage and bleach­ers have per­sist­ed for years, Par­ris stat­ed that re­ceiv­ing sub­ven­tion funds ear­ly would fa­cil­i­tate bud­get cre­ation and the sourc­ing of sup­pli­ers for such in­fra­struc­ture. He con­firmed that these el­e­ments were be­ing con­sid­ered by the mar­ket­ing team.

Par­ris ac­knowl­edged that while the num­ber of Ole Mas por­tray­als had dwin­dled over the years in San Fer­nan­do, the tra­di­tion re­mained vi­brant in oth­er parts of the coun­try.

“It is some­thing we must pre­serve through­out Car­ni­val by pass­ing it on to the next gen­er­a­tion.”

Par­ris re­mind­ed teach­ers at the work­shop that in to­day’s fast-paced world, many peo­ple are pre­oc­cu­pied with mak­ing mon­ey. How­ev­er, he stressed that the ole mas tra­di­tion is not on­ly in­ex­pen­sive but al­so cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant, as it serves to tell a sto­ry. He re­called for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning’s re­mark that politi­cians must have al­li­ga­tor skin and re­mind­ed his coun­cil­lors not to say any­thing they could not take back.

Hap­py to con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion, he fond­ly re­called hu­mor­ous por­tray­als of him­self, in­clud­ing one that de­pict­ed “Par­ris run­ning the ven­dors.”

“If you do not have a sense of hu­mour, you are dead,” Par­ris joked.