Dear Mr. Colin Dowe.
RE: Prize Money for carnival 2011
GPACT has tried exceedingly hard to avoid conflict, confrontation and public discord with the GCC in 2011, while the GCC has done everything possible in the book to create the kind of confrontations that they have grown accustomed to, and seem to like over the years. One would have thought that the GCC over the years would have grown-up and matured to deal with Stakeholders in a positive, progressive, national interest and amicable manner to resolve outstanding matters. But this thought remains wishful thinking on our part.
GPACT and other Stakeholders were called by the GCC to a meeting on Sept. 27th 2011 for the very first time after carnival to be told that the GCC do not have sufficient funds to pay the prize monies (which should have been paid within fourteen days after carnival) and that the GCC is seeking assistance from / dialogue with various sources.
Additionally, GCC advised the Stakeholders at that meeting that they will be informed of the status payment of prize monies by Tuesday of the following week (October 4) and also release a public statement to that effect. In fact the Junior Minister of Culture reiterated those sentiments in the national media days later, but to date nothing to that effect has been forthcoming. Take the fool further is a familiar tactic, but no more.
Bear in mind that this call by GCC to meet on September 27 for stakeholders to be the receivers of yet more bad news from the GCC is almost two months after carnival 2011 was supposedly “a success” according to you and the Junior Minister for Culture.
More interestingly is the fact that both the Junior Minister for Culture and the Chairman of GCC indicated publicly that the delay in paying prizes was due to the Junior Minister and Chairman of GCC awaiting artistes to return from Labour Day and once they return an official prize giving ceremony will be held promptly. This seems to have indicated that monies were indeed available to pay prizes.
Consequently, Mr. Chairman, our patience is running out and GPACT has no choice but to give you the final ultimatum that Calypsonians must be paid by Oct. 24th 2011. Failure to adhere to our request will give us no other option but to seek redress in the Court and provide moral support to all other artistes who seek legal redress for the delay/refusal of GCC to pay prize monies.
We also wish to state publicly that at that meeting called by the GCC on September 27, 2011 to issue your bad news and other insults to the GPACT representative at that meeting, your GCC members refused to provide stakeholders with any written report or verification or any sort of written or verifiable account of the performance of carnival 2011, yet your members at that meeting had in their possession and were referring to documentation that you bluntly refused to give a copy of to stakeholders present. Yes, you refused to give documentation to the stakeholders you called to a meeting that your members were using or referring to. You were in the light while you called stakeholders to a meeting, blindfolded them and kept them in the dark. Well how much more vulgar can you and your GCC get? Have you not learned that without stakeholders there will be no carnival?
GPACT wish to state publicly that this is the third consecutive year that your GCC has not accorded stakeholders the most basic of respect by providing stakeholders with any report of the performance of carnival. We now question whether claims by the GCC can be believed in the absence of any written account of the performance of carnival.
We wish to publicly request a copy of the report of the performance of carnival 2011, and we call on the minister for culture and the NDC Government to defend its avowed claims of transparency and accountability and demand that the GCC provide stakeholders with a copy of the report of the performance of carnival 2011 and 2010.
Let me take this opportunity also to inform and warn the GCC that the 2012 Carnival Season will not be like that of 2011. Our level of tolerance for GCC’s conduct has reached its peak. We cannot continue to accept the kind of disrespect that you and your Carnival Committee seem to enjoy dishing out to stakeholders, especially GPACT. The anti-GPACT campaign being mounted and incentivized inside GCC and its carnival secretariat (and presumably elsewhere) remains very distasteful and we demand an end to the disrespect meted out to GPACT from the GCC, such disrespect and distaste include but certainly not limited to:
- disrespect in the manner in which GPACT representatives are spoken to, generally treated or dismissed by you and your GCC when we raise legitimate concerns in the interest of our members and performers of calypso / soca generally;
- political insults hurled at GPACTs representative during the September 27, 2011 meeting that you invited GPACT to. Do you call stakeholders to meetings to insult them?
- the numerous and continuing insults meted out to GPACT over passes for carnival 2011 (a matter that has increasingly worsened since you became chairman of the GCC);
- vulgar disrespect regarding our right of review of judges selected for adjudication of calypso competition during carnival 2011 and 2010 (violation of this right increasingly worsened since you became chairman of GCC);
- repeated and vulgar attempts by you to deny our right to review judges scores following each round of competition in 2011 (a matter that has increasingly worsened since you became chairman of GCC, yet you are serving in an administration that stakes its performance on transparency and accountability) and, related to these with reference to calypso adjudication;
- your blatant refusal to provide to GPACT the master score sheet following Di Manche Gras final 2011, notwithstanding appeals from GPACT and from various other sources to you (beginning with appeals following preliminary rounds of Calypso competition 2011. It was only upon such appeals did you provide the master score sheet of preliminary rounds of judging). You continue to refuse to provide master score sheet of calypso finals to GPACT notwithstanding the benefit of transparency and veracity arising from stakeholder review of judges performance following preliminary round of calypso competition; for it was GPACT’s review of preliminary judging that unearth and disclosed errors of calculation and omission during judging of calypso preliminaries, yet you refused to provide such judges master sheet after calypso finals 2011, among a plethora of other unsavory conduct by you and your GCC.
Let it also be stated for the record that the Junior Minister for Culture claimed in a press conference that all subventions have been paid; however, a portion of the small subvention in 2011 is still outstanding / owed to GPACT.
Since working together, cooperation, transparency, accountability and respect for stakeholder rights in the conduct and execution of carnival seem foreign to you and your GCC over the past three years, GPACT will be very reluctant to sit with you and your committee or other entities of which you are a part, to hold any dialogue for carnival 2012. We are disgusted.
Please be assured of our highest regards.
Sincerely,
Adrian Thomas
……………………………..
Adrian “Persuader” Thomas
President, GPACT
405-6590 / 444-6874
Cc: Minister for Tourism and Culture
Jr. Minister for Culture
Deputy-Chairperson of GCC
The Press
