Sacha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Three months af­ter Car­ni­val, some San Fer­nan­do band lead­ers are still wait­ing to re­ceive their prize mon­ey.

Al­ick An­tho­ny Charles, leader of the win­ning San Fer­nan­do J’Ou­vert band is now threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion if pay­ments are not made swift­ly.

In a let­ter to the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer on Wednes­day, Charles, leader of B Man and Lord Street Fu­sion and Fam­i­ly Events band, said, “It is with a deep and heavy dis­tressed and dis­turbed spir­it that I have to put pen to pa­per to ex­press my dis­ap­point­ment, the to­tal dis­re­gard and dis­re­spect hand­ed out to me and oth­er band lead­ers and win­ners of var­i­ous San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val 2023 com­pe­ti­tions.”

Not­ing that his band al­so won Car­ni­val Tues­day’s medi­um mas band cat­e­go­ry, he said they have a le­gal ex­pec­ta­tion to be award­ed the prizes (prize monies) that were “le­git­i­mate­ly reg­is­tered and com­pet­ed for and won.”

Charles said Car­ni­val 2024 is ap­proach­ing and band lead­ers are yet to cov­er their ex­pens­es for this year’s pre­sen­ta­tion.

He is call­ing on the cor­po­ra­tion or the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) to deal with this is­sue ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Ayana Kalicha­ran, from the Kalicha­ran band that copped the San Fer­nan­do Band of the Year win­ner, who said that they al­so have not re­ceived their prize mon­ey or re­ceived any com­mu­ni­ca­tion on when it will be pre­sent­ed to them.

At the Cor­po­ra­tion’s Statu­to­ry Meet­ing in March, a prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny was held for the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so and Ju­nior mas win­ners.

It was mere days be­fore Car­ni­val that the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived its first re­lease of Car­ni­val funds to host com­pe­ti­tions in San Fer­nan­do.

At­tempts to reach San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo and San Fer­nan­do Con­vey­or of Car­ni­val Naigum Joseph on their cell­phones for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.