The National Carnival Commission (NCC) has a little over a month to pay Pan Trinbago the $3 million in ticket sales it collected for this year’s Panorama competition.
High Court judge Vasheist Kokaram made the order in the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain as he ruled that the NCC had acted unlawfully when it took a unilateral decision to take away the power from the organisation over alleged issues of financial accountability.
Immediately following the judgment, NCC’s lawyer Rishi Dass requested that Kokaram’s order for payment of the money, which was held in escrow from the start of the case, to be stayed.
Dass claimed his client had advanced money to Pan Trinbago in excess of its budgeted annual subvention under the agreement that the advanced sums would be deducted if they (Pan Trinbago) won the lawsuit.
Kokaram noted that the court should have been notified of such an arrangement and agreed to stay the order for seven days to give the parties time to negotiate. Even without the stay, Pan Trinbago would have had to wait 28 days for repayment as that period was cemented in the initial escrow agreement.
In a 73-page judgment, Kokaram ruled that NCC had breached Pan Trinbago’s legitimate expectation to collect the revenue as it had been doing so under the authority of Cabinet, since 1997.
He also ruled that NCC had failed to consult with the organisation before effecting the decision, which was made by Community Development, Culture and the Arts Minister Nyan Gadsby-Dolly.
He said that NCC had failed to show the need for the change considering that the revenue was only 10 per cent of the costs associated with hosting the competition, that already receives substantial Government subvention.
“Indeed they (Pan Trinbago) acted on this for years in preparing their finances and saw it as a means to maintain a measure of liquidity and plan its events for the rest of the year. Both parties saw no difficulty in these arrangements until 2017 when the minister sounded a change of approach,” Kokaram said.
As part of the judgment, Kokaram issued some non-binding advice to the parties on how to improve their continued relationship including the use of mediation, consultation and the consideration of new stakeholder accounting scheme.
“They have it in their own disposal means by which they can agree amongst themselves, however, elaborate their own schemes, to ensure the proper use of funds,” he said.
“As I pointed out to them, the judicial determination of the claim as filed comes nowhere close to dealing with that live, practical and recurring problem which they both must face in the months and years to come,” he added.
NCC was also represented by Douglas Mendes and Dharmendra Punwasee. Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, Ronnie Bissessar and Saskia Samlal represented Pan Trinbago.
Pan Trinbago Responds
In an interview afterwards, Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz said that his organisation was happy with the outcome and felt vindicated over its decision to take the issue to court.
“What they (NCC) brought down on us was not good and we took it court and we a proud that the judge took his time in deliberating and ruled in favour of the steel band movement,” Diaz said.
He claimed that while the issue was being litigated his organisation faced serious cash flow issues.
“We were not able to pay staff their salaries for months. Not even the rent. We were owing people and were not able to pay them,” Diaz said.
He said that he and executive members listened to Kokaram’s advice and would be working closely with the NCC and its recently appointed chairman Colin Lucas in the future.
“We are working with the NCC to make Panorama happen. It is the highest pinnacle of the steel band movement,” Diaz said.
The preliminary round of the competition is due to commence on January 4.
Lucas was present in court for the hearing but declined to comment.