Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz says there is a need for consultation among his organisation and the Ministries of Community Development, Culture and the Arts and the Ministry of Tourism to discuss Carnival related events.
“Culture is what helps our people to move forward in all walks of life and represent the people and we have the richest culture in the Caribbean so we have to know how to develop those values,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Diaz said Limbo, Calypso, Soca and the Groovy Soca were all different aspects of T&T’s culture and this needed to be marketed now.
“I can’t do it by myself and call for consultation. I support Calypso, Soca and Chutney. Because we were criticised last year we made changes, that is why we came up with certain things for us to make a way forward.”
“We need to hook up with the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture and have discussions in a big way by the end of April for next year,” he said.
Diaz said discussions for next year’s Carnival should not be in the months between October and December.
“So people will understand what is transpiring and our culture will generate good foreign exchange. We need to sit down and discuss this,” he said.
Referring to the travel advisory issued by the Canadian government last week, in which it claimed T&T was a high risk, Diaz said: “It have other countries that have more serious crime. In Canada it have crime and in America and all over the world have crime. That is an answer for the Government of T&T. In our event for the past years it was no violence in Panorama. There are thousands of people in Panorama.”
On Sunday, the Panorama semifinals of both medium and large bands will be held at the Queen’s Park Savannah at the price of $250.
Diaz said there will be 40 large and 40 medium bands in the line up for the event at the Queen’s Park Savannah. He said everything was in place for competition this weekend. He said the National semifinals for the Small Bands competition will be on Saturday with 30 bands taking part along Ariapita Avenue to Park Street and Victoria Square, Port-of-Spain
“Patrons can pay $100 and come in. We have to try to make money to raise funds for the year. We are looking to help ourselves with money for salaries for the Pan Trinbago staff for a year because we don’t have a subvention so we have to take the initiative and capitalise now,” he said.