Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters said Car­ni­val 2024 was a suc­cess even though the $147 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion was in­suf­fi­cient.

“You have to cut your pants to suit the cloth that you have,” he said.

Pe­ters re­vealed that the NCC’s books are in the red de­spite the rev­enue Car­ni­val brings in each year.

“When you look at the bal­ance sheet you have a lot of red ink here and there you know but the thing about it is that’s what the Gov­ern­ment can af­ford at this point in time. We are ask­ing them for more,” he ex­plained.

Pe­ters es­ti­mat­ed that Car­ni­val 2024 brought in more than $1 bil­lion in rev­enue and an in­crease in vis­i­tors to the coun­try.

“We had peo­ple in the air­port check­ing, we had a cruise ship here with 2000...peo­ple on it that we didn’t have last Car­ni­val,” he said.

The NCC chair­man be­lieves that some of the rev­enue that goes di­rect­ly to the gov­ern­ment can be used on Car­ni­val.

“If we were to take the mon­ey that Car­ni­val brought in­to this coun­try and in­vest it back in­to Car­ni­val we will be able to have our Car­ni­val mu­se­ums and we would be able to have all the things we dream about hav­ing in our Car­ni­val and we will be able to pay off all the peo­ple that we have to pay,” he said.

Pe­ters said the peo­ple who crit­i­cise Car­ni­val ben­e­fit from the event as it has built schools, and po­lice sta­tions and even paid back pay.

“The mon­ey that Car­ni­val brings in is very sig­nif­i­cant...we bring in about $1.4 to $5 bil­lion,” he said.

He said there were times in the past when the NCC got over $200 mil­lion to run Car­ni­val but oth­er than the al­lo­ca­tion, the Gov­ern­ment helps when it can.

Pe­ters added that he wel­comes the in­no­va­tion brought to Car­ni­val and the di­rec­tion in which the younger gen­er­a­tion was tak­ing the cul­ture.

“I’m in the wav­ing gallery in the de­par­ture lounge and the thing about it is that any­body who is com­ing in on the flight, I want to see them and I want them to have a good flight be­cause I had a good one in my youth,” he said.

In 2025 he hopes to get enough mon­ey to fi­nance the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

“I’m hop­ing that we can get enough fund­ing whether it’s from pri­vate or pub­lic fund­ing and just try to see,” he said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell said he need­ed more time to con­firm the num­bers giv­en by the NCC chair­man.