Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The com­pa­ny be­hind the flopped con­cert in­volv­ing Ja­maican artiste Adid­ja “Vy­bz Kar­tel” Palmer says the near­ly US$1 mil­lion US need­ed for his ser­vices was ac­quired le­git­i­mate­ly.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment Ltd said it main­tains strict com­pli­ance with all laws and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing for­eign ex­change.

“Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment, as a ful­ly reg­is­tered and law-abid­ing en­ter­tain­ment pro­mo­tion com­pa­ny, con­duct­ed all for­eign ex­change trans­ac­tions for the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val through le­gal, reg­u­lat­ed, and ver­i­fi­able fi­nan­cial chan­nels. At no time did Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment en­gage in any form of unau­tho­rised or black-mar­ket cur­ren­cy ex­change,” the com­pa­ny said.

It added that while it wel­comes any trans­par­ent re­view with­in the bounds of law, there is no rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to ini­ti­ate one. The com­pa­ny not­ed that no for­mal re­port or com­plaint was made con­cern­ing the ini­tial trans­fer of US funds to Kar­tel, and all pay­ments were via law­ful and trace­able bank­ing pro­ce­dures.

“There is no ba­sis in law or fact for any pre­sump­tion of wrong­do­ing sole­ly be­cause a pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ty suc­cess­ful­ly ac­cessed for­eign ex­change through prop­er le­gal chan­nels,” it said.

“Any in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be guid­ed by rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause, not mere as­sump­tions. The pub­lic in­ter­est is not served by en­gag­ing in a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion that tar­gets a le­git­i­mate com­pa­ny with­out any for­mal al­le­ga­tion or ev­i­dence of im­pro­pri­ety.”

Promis­ing an­oth­er re­lease to ad­dress oth­er con­cerns, such as pos­si­ble re­fund to pa­trons, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment added: “We re­spect­ful­ly re­quest that pub­lic of­fi­cials and me­dia out­lets avoid spec­u­la­tion that could un­fair­ly dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion of law-abid­ing en­ti­ties in the cre­ative sec­tor.”

Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment al­so promised a fur­ther me­dia re­lease soon to ad­dress ques­tions that have arisen in the pub­lic do­main.

The state­ment came a day af­ter act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said that the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (FIB) was prob­ing the source, method and tim­ing of the US$950,000 pay­ment made to Kar­tel to head­line last Sat­ur­day’s One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val be­fore he pulled out due to a dis­pute over the re­main­der of his fee.

Kar­tel was con­tract­ed for a to­tal of US$1.35 mil­lion to per­form at the con­cert, which al­so fea­tured oth­er for­eign acts in­clud­ing Malie Donn, Rvss­ian, Siz­zla Kalon­ji, Chron­ic Law and Moliy. Chron­ic Law, how­ev­er, was the on­ly for­eign act to per­form, along with lo­cal artistes La­dy La­va, KMC, Iw­er George, Joshua Re­grel­lo and Ravi B.

Mean­while, in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said his min­istry will be work­ing close­ly with the po­lice in the probe in­to the mat­ter.

On Sun­day Tan­coo said his min­istry was en­gag­ing in a fact-find­ing mis­sion con­cern­ing how the com­pa­ny got ac­cess to that amount of forex, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the forex cri­sis the coun­try is cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

“The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­tin­u­ing. I think the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of my min­istry will be li­ais­ing with the po­lice with re­gards to their own in­ves­ti­ga­tion. So, we will, at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, sup­port the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the po­lice right now,” Tan­coo said.

With the con­cert flop­ping, many tick­et hold­ers have been seek­ing re­funds. Two on­line tick­et­ing agen­cies, Front­line Tick­et­ing and Is­land eT­ick­ets, have promised to re­fund cus­tomers. Yes­ter­day, Is­land eT­ick­ets chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer Matthew Enci­nas said the re­fund process will be­gin to­mor­row and com­plet­ed with­in five busi­ness days.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Enci­nas said the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to both pro­mot­ers and pa­trons.

“It’s equal­ly im­por­tant to recog­nise our com­mit­ment to the pro­mot­ers who use our plat­form. When a pro­mot­er runs a pro­fes­sion­al, well-ex­e­cut­ed event, we stand be­hind them just as firm­ly. Our plat­form ex­ists to em­pow­er both pa­trons and pro­mot­ers—so long as both par­ties op­er­ate with in­tegri­ty, we will al­ways have their back. We’re proud to be a lo­cal com­pa­ny that op­er­ates with glob­al stan­dards, and we hope our re­sponse shows that we don’t just process tick­ets—we pro­tect the trust that sur­rounds them,” he said.

Asked if be­lieves this de­ci­sion will see a growth in on­line tick­et pur­chas­ing, Enci­nas said, “What this sit­u­a­tion demon­strates is Is­land eT­ick­ets’ un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to do­ing what is right—even when it comes at a fi­nan­cial cost. We be­lieve pa­trons choose our plat­form be­cause we take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when things go wrong, and we act de­ci­sive­ly to pro­tect their trust. Our de­ci­sion to is­sue full re­funds re­flects the kind of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty we be­lieve should de­fine tick­et­ing in the Caribbean.”

The in­ci­dent has al­so sparked a con­ver­sa­tion with­in the cre­ative in­dus­try about the high fees pro­mot­ers pay for­eign acts in com­par­i­son to lo­cals.