Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

One South mas band is ques­tion­ing the re­sults of the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee Mod­ern J’Ou­vert com­pe­ti­tion, claim­ing that the sec­ond-place win­ner was judged in the wrong cat­e­go­ry.

Al­ick An­tho­ny Charles, leader of B Man and Lord Street Fu­sion Fam­i­ly Events, sent a let­ter to the chief judge on March 7, ex­press­ing his con­cerns and ask­ing that the re­sults be re­viewed.

Charles’ band placed third in the mod­ern cat­e­go­ry with 230 points with his pre­sen­ta­tion, Tru Talk ... No Ef­fin Lie, just be­hind Poudre J’Ou­vert’s The Spir­it of the Dame Lor­raine—Danc­ing through Ad­ver­si­ty, which amassed 234 points.

Dev’s Bar­ber­shop Crew won that cat­e­go­ry with its pre­sen­ta­tion, AI Gen­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, Charles is con­tend­ing that the Poudre should have been judged in the earth cat­e­go­ry, not the mod­ern cat­e­go­ry.

In his let­ter, he stat­ed that the guide­lines in the Com­mit­tee Hand­book out­lined the three cat­e­gories—tra­di­tion­al, mod­ern, and earth—and he stat­ed that prizes were to be award­ed for first, sec­ond, and third place in each cat­e­go­ry where ap­plic­a­ble.

He said, “Based on this, we be­lieve the band, Poudre, was in­cor­rect­ly judged in the mod­ern cat­e­go­ry when they should have been as­sessed in the earth cat­e­go­ry, as they are a paint band.

“We re­quest clar­i­fi­ca­tion on why Poudre was cat­e­gorised dif­fer­ent­ly, as this may have af­fect­ed their score and over­all re­sults. There­fore, we are ve­he­ment­ly ask­ing that the place­ment of such bands be re­viewed and the band(s) be placed in ap­pro­pri­ate cat­e­gories.” Charles was al­so con­cerned that no penal­ties were ap­plied for in­frac­tions that oc­curred along the route, de­spite the guide­lines that set out penal­ties for bands fail­ing to move un­nec­es­sar­i­ly and fail­ure to com­ply with in­struc­tions from Car­ni­val of­fi­cials and po­lice.

Re­quest­ing an ex­pla­na­tion as to why these penal­ties were not en­forced, Charles be­lieves that ad­dress­ing these con­cerns would en­sure a fair­er process for all par­tic­i­pants mov­ing for­ward.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said he did not see the let­ter, but he has no is­sue with the re­sults. He said Poudre reg­is­tered and was judged in the mod­ern cat­e­go­ry. The may­or added that the band played clean mas but sprayed abeer (dye) when they were cross­ing the stage.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Poudre de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter.

South J’Ou­vert was tout­ed as the biggest in the coun­try, with 30 bands par­tic­i­pat­ing this year.