Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor, News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore says she is “ex­treme­ly wor­ried” about the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny’s (NGC) de­ci­sion to cut spon­sor­ship of three steel­bands and its part­ner­ship with Pan Trin­ba­go, warn­ing the move sends a trou­bling sig­nal to oth­er state-owned com­pa­nies.

The com­ments come af­ter NGC ter­mi­nat­ed spon­sor­ship agree­ments with the La Brea Nightin­gales, Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, and Steel Ex­plo­sion from To­ba­go, cit­ing a re-eval­u­a­tion of con­tracts.

In a let­ter to La Brea Nightin­gales dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 3, act­ing pres­i­dent Ed­mund Solomon said: “Whilst we val­ue the busi­ness re­la­tion­ship be­tween NGC and La Brea Nightin­gales, NGC is present­ly re-eval­u­at­ing its ex­ist­ing con­tracts and has de­ter­mined that it is no longer vi­able for NGC to con­tin­ue un­der the present agree­ment.”

The con­tract end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 11.

“Yes, I’m ex­treme­ly wor­ried,” Ram­sey-Moore said, call­ing the de­ci­sion “in­sen­si­tive” and “pass­ing strange.”

She added: “We just cel­e­brat­ed Steel­pan Month. Pan is our na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. It is def­i­nite­ly on a high, not on­ly here at home, but in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. And when your state bod­ies send that kind of sig­nal, what does it say to the oth­er cor­po­rate bod­ies?

“Pan is com­mu­ni­ty. Now you’re won­der­ing what’s go­ing to hap­pen with NL­CB. You’re won­der­ing what’s go­ing to hap­pen with Her­itage and all those oth­er com­pa­nies.”

Ram­sey-Moore said in­vest­ment in steel­pan al­so sup­ports youth, women, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

“When you in­vest in steel­pan, you in­vest in youth de­vel­op­ment, in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, in women’s de­vel­op­ment,” she said.

She con­firmed Pan Trin­ba­go’s fund­ing from NGC had al­so been cut.

“It’s not on­ly the bands, they have al­so cut the as­so­ci­a­tion with us as Pan Trin­ba­go,” she said.

“I can’t give you the ex­act fig­ure right now as to what we got for this year, but I was get­ting some sig­nals. I don’t know what is hap­pen­ing. It’s pass­ing strange.”

The Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent said she reached out to Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin for sup­port.

“I did reach out and I asked her to in­ter­vene, and she has giv­en me a word that she’s go­ing to in­ter­vene,” she said.

She al­so ap­pealed for a meet­ing with NGC.

“We are pre­pared for di­a­logue. We can sit down and we can work to­geth­er. We look for­ward to dis­cus­sions on it. They should have giv­en us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to have di­a­logue,” she said.

Cou­va Joy­lan­ders con­firmed the ter­mi­na­tion on so­cial me­dia, say­ing: “This marks the end of a mean­ing­ful part­ner­ship that has helped fu­el our growth, strength­en our pro­grammes, and up­lift our play­ers and sup­port­ers. We are deeply grate­ful to NGC for their sup­port over the years.”

CNC3 News has reached out to NGC and the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment for com­ment. The min­istry has not re­spond­ed, while NGC has ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the query but has not yet re­spond­ed.