Carliston “Calypso Kerr” Kerr, the National Carnival Commission’s coordinator for County Caroni is appealing for regional Carnival bodies to receive full funding to meet their budgets to ensure successful events. He made the plea before the start of Monday Night Carnival celebrations hosted by the Chaguanas Borough Carnival Committee.
Kerr said regional bodies in Central were doing an excellent job and could have achieved more if they had received their full budget from the NCC.
He said, “The people in Central, I think what they ask for is because they realise the potential that they are dealing with. If they set out to do ‘X’ and they get three quarters of ‘X’ or half of ‘X,’ they can only do that much. When it’s time to criticise, everybody may want to criticise. If they pull off a magic and get everything and everything goes well, everybody wants to jump on the train, they want to be part of that successful running.”
He said timely investment prevents bigger problems in the future. “It come like road construction, if you need a road to go somewhere, you don’t wait until lives are lost or cars get damage so you repair it on time, you save lives, you save time and you are looking at the next ten years down the line or even 20.”
Renee Bailey, chairman of the CBCC, said the committee was notified at the last minute by the NCC of a 25 percent budget cut and had to “scramble” to secure funds from the private sector. She said several new bands participated in Kiddies Carnival and that the CBCC had reached out to various communities after last year’s celebrations to boost participation.
Monday night’s event, entitled Echoes of Ancestry, featured a stick-fighting demonstration from the T&T Stick Fighting Cultural Group, performances by the Amritam Shakti Dancers, the Tropical Angel Harps pan orchestra, the Point Fortin Rhythm Section, and the Shooting Stars Tassa Group.