Chester Sam­bra­no

To­ba­go mas band­lead­ers yes­ter­day threat­ened to boy­cott this year’s Car­ni­val if the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly does not in­crease its al­lo­ca­tion for the sea­son.

“No mon­ey, no mas,” was the threat to the THA from Jem­ma Bed­low-Den­nis, in­ter­im chair­man of the To­ba­go Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

Bed­low-Den­nis ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the $1.3 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to band­lead­ers for the up­com­ing fes­ti­val on Feb­ru­ary 20 and 21.

“The band­lead­ers, along with my­self, feel thief, dis­trust, dis­re­spect­ed on the al­lo­ca­tion giv­en to mas,” she said.

Sur­round­ed by more than a dozen peo­ple, Bed­low-Den­nis said she knew that speak­ing out would make her en­e­mies but said she had no choice but to stand up for the band­lead­ers.

“We are tired of the dis­re­spect. Al­lo­ca­tion of 1.3 (mil­lion dol­lars), we, the band­lead­ers, are say­ing no! We don’t want it,” she ex­claimed.

Bed­low-Den­nis said there are cur­rent­ly 32 band­lead­ers bring­ing Car­ni­val por­tray­als for 2023 and for them, she had sub­mit­ted a bud­get of $3.5 mil­lion.

“That still cheap,” shout­ed an­oth­er per­son in the room.

She not­ed that the al­lo­ca­tion for the To­ba­go Car­ni­val in Oc­to­ber was $17.5 mil­lion.

“Could some­one tell me what the bands and them make? Noth­ing!”

She ex­plained that in or­der to par­tic­i­pate in those fes­tiv­i­ties, some bands took loans from var­i­ous fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and “buss.”

“This year, bands must make back some­thing,” she said.

Bed­low-Den­nis said she was hear­ing “crazy” talk about the fact that there is now mas in To­ba­go al­ready in Oc­to­ber and there are whis­pers that the fo­cus may on­ly be on that mov­ing for­ward.

How­ev­er, she said, “This is the na­tion­al Car­ni­val and un­less it goes back to Par­lia­ment for a re­view, you can­not stop it.”

She said the al­lo­ca­tion for the Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val was a step back in time.

“Do they know how much for a feath­er? One pea­cock feath­er by Sama­roo’s is a thou­sand dol­lars,” she ex­plained.

She added, “Bands must make mon­ey, and they are ask­ing me for qual­i­ty, you will get it, give me mon­ey.”

Bed­low-Den­nis said the next step if they get no pos­i­tive re­sponse would be a protest.

She said she has been beg­ging for a meet­ing with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine but that has not ma­te­ri­alised.

How­ev­er, she said some­one in au­thor­i­ty in To­ba­go will have to reach out to her to dis­cuss the is­sue.

Fol­low­ing the me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia sought com­ments from Sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties & Trans­porta­tion Tashia Bur­ris and her As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Megan Mor­ri­son on the de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, nei­ther had re­spond­ed up to last evening.

On­ly last week, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion Ltd (TF­CL), John Arnold, said that all stake­hold­ers were get­ting ready for the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals.”

Arnold claimed all of the stake­hold­ers said they had al­ready start­ed to work on their Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tions.

“The mas fra­ter­ni­ty has in­di­cat­ed that Miss Jem­ma Bed­low has in­di­cat­ed that with her mem­ber­ship. The same thing we had for pan and the same thing we had from the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty,” Arnold said.

On a na­tion­al lev­el, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters in­di­cat­ed that there was a short­fall of $53 mil­lion for Car­ni­val 2023.

How­ev­er, he said the NCC will make do with the $147 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to it by the Gov­ern­ment.