Shal­iza Has­sanali

?Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the coun­try's first flag man­u­fac­tur­er–Bak­ers Flags and Em­blems Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ltd–has said that none of their busi­ness­es were asked to ten­der for man­u­fac­tur­ing and in­stal­la­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial $2 mil­lion flag re­cent­ly hoist­ed at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain. Joan Bak­er Flags and Em­blems in Port-of-Spain and Bak­ers En­ter­pris­es in Trinci­ty are two of the three flag busi­ness­es owned by Bak­ers Flags and Em­blems. The four com­pa­nies as well as Fire One (which sup­plies fire­works, flags and poles) are the on­ly five busi­ness­es in Trinidad which deals in flags. The com­pa­ny's MD fur­ther said that as far as she was aware no ten­ders had been put out for the man­u­fac­tur­ing and in­stal­la­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial $2 mil­lion flag, nor was it ad­ver­tised in the press by the Min­istry of Sport. The di­rec­tor, who re­fused to give her name for fear of be­ing kid­napped af­ter peo­ple be­gan pin­point­ing her as the busi­ness woman who col­lect­ed the whop­ping fig­ure for the flag, dis­as­so­ci­at­ed her­self from the con­tro­ver­sy last Fri­day.

She, how­ev­er, in­sist­ed that the $2 mil­lion spent for the na­tion­al flag was way too much. "No mat­ter what it is, I can't see it cost­ing $2 mil­lion, that is the bot­tom line," the busi­ness woman said. With­in the last 36 hours, the di­rec­tor said her busi­ness was swamped with calls brand­ing her a scamp. "Peo­ple even met me on the street ask­ing if I was the woman who made the flag. They are say­ing how I could charge the Gov­ern­ment $2 mil­lion for a flag and pole," she said, speak­ing at her Ari­ma of­fice. She said she want­ed to set the record straight to avoid be­ing tar­get­ed. The di­rec­tor be­lieves the $2 mil­lion could have gone a long way in pro­vid­ing ba­sic ser­vices for cit­i­zens. "Even if you want to fly a flag, you could do it, but not at the enor­mi­ty of that cost." She could not say ex­act­ly how much she would charge to man­u­fac­ture a flag that size, adding that there were a lot of fac­tors in­volved in the pro­duc­tion such as the qual­i­ty of the fab­ric and oth­er vari­ables.

At last Thurs­day's Post Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Sport Min­is­ter Gary Hunt, though un­able to con­firm the cost of the flag, said even if it was true, it would be noth­ing out of the or­di­nary. The flag, which stands at 130 feet high, was un­veiled by Hunt at an of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny on Au­gust 4. Hunt ad­mit­ted that there was a lot of work to be done on the foun­da­tion lev­el. "I am not sure if ex­act­ly that fig­ure ($2 mil­lion) is ex­act­ly cor­rect," he added, stat­ing that there is no price on na­tion­al pride. Con­tact­ed last Fri­day, di­rec­tors of Fire One, ad­ver­tised as the home of the largest na­tion­al flag in the Caribbean, re­fused com­ment. Fire One events co-or­di­na­tor Dali­ni George said the com­pa­ny's man­ag­ing di­rec­tor pre­ferred not to com­ment.

?Hunt un­reach­able:

?Reached for a com­ment yes­ter­day, Hunt told the Sun­day Guardian he was in a meet­ing and to call back at 4.30 pm. Calls to his cell phone late yes­ter­day went unan­swered.