Duke challenges Tobago Carnival success

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While stake­hold­ers es­ti­mat­ed that To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val drew be­tween 30,000 and 37,000 vis­i­tors, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke has ques­tioned the fes­ti­val’s over­all im­pact on the is­land’s econ­o­my.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the PDP’s Port Mall of­fice in Scar­bor­ough on Wednes­day, Duke ac­knowl­edged that many en­joyed the Car­ni­val but ar­gued that some To­bag­o­ni­ans in­vest­ed in cos­tumes and sup­plies on­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence dis­ap­point­ing sales. He raised doubts about the vis­i­tor es­ti­mates, point­ing to chal­lenges in ac­com­mo­dat­ing so many peo­ple on an is­land with lim­it­ed lodg­ing op­tions.

Last week, Dex­ter Sandy, in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val As­so­ci­a­tion, re­port­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30,000 peo­ple had vis­it­ed the is­land for the event.

ACP Col­lis Hazel al­so es­ti­mat­ed over 37,500 ar­rivals by fer­ry and air, while Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la hare­wood-Christo­pher said the TTPS had pro­tect­ed over 8,000 rev­ellers for the ac­tu­al Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

But Duke re­ferred to a 2016-2017 Ox­ford Busi­ness Group study es­ti­mat­ing around 4,000 rooms on the is­land, and even ac­count­ing for re­cent in­creas­es, he said there were like­ly no more than 5,000 rooms avail­able.

“If 30,000 peo­ple came to To­ba­go and there are 5,000 rooms, where did the oth­er 25,000 stay?” Duke asked.

He sug­gest­ed that with­out ad­di­tion­al da­ta on room stock, the re­port­ed fig­ures might have been in­flat­ed, say­ing, “In To­ba­go, we do not cre­ate ex­tra rooms just for Car­ni­val; ei­ther you are in a bed and break­fast, Airbnb, or a long-term rental.”

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion Chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters gave the Car­ni­val a high rat­ing of 8.5 out of 10, say­ing it “on an up­ward tra­jec­to­ry.”

While Duke ap­pre­ci­at­ed the fes­tive at­mos­phere, he ques­tioned Pe­ters’ cri­te­ria, not­ing that al­though there were vi­brant ca­lyp­so and street per­for­mances, not all ven­dors had pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences.

Duke point­ed out vet­er­an band­leader Mar­cellin Nedd, who faced dif­fi­cul­ties sell­ing cos­tumes, while an­oth­er ven­dor in his Ar­gyle/Rox­bor­ough dis­trict had de­cid­ed to stop par­tic­i­pat­ing in Car­ni­val en­tire­ly. He al­so raised con­cerns over sub­si­dies re­port­ed­ly giv­en to a cer­tain Trinidad-based band.

“Sub­si­dies with whose mon­ey? To­ba­go mon­ey? You can­not take To­ba­go mon­ey and give it to any Trinidad Car­ni­val band, sub­si­dis­ing their cos­tumes,” he said. Duke said some cos­tumes cost as much as $4,000 to $5,000.

While he ac­knowl­edged that Car­ni­val en­ter­tain­ment, mu­sic, and rev­el­ry are en­joy­able, he ques­tioned the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit for the is­land, point­ing to the sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial costs of stag­ing the event. He not­ed that the Car­ni­val’s bud­get dropped from $17.5 mil­lion in its first year to $12.5 mil­lion last year and $9 mil­lion this year. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the peo­ple of To­ba­go still had in­suf­fi­cient eco­nom­ic re­turns.

Duke con­tend­ed that the mon­ey spent on Car­ni­val could have been bet­ter al­lo­cat­ed, claim­ing there are is­sues at the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal, where short­ages of es­sen­tial med­i­cines like Panadol and a rise in still­births, in­fant and ma­ter­nal mor­tal­i­ty, and chron­ic dis­eases such as can­cer, hy­per­ten­sion, di­a­betes, and re­nal fail­ure are af­fect­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“We are see­ing un­prece­dent­ed spikes in health is­sues, yet $9 mil­lion is spent on Car­ni­val. Car­ni­val is more than wine and jam, get­ting drunk and skin teeth; it has an eco­nom­ic cost the peo­ple must bear.”

Ac­cord­ing to Duke, To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val in­creas­ing­ly re­sem­bles a Trinidad Car­ni­val trans­plant­ed on­to the is­land. While he clar­i­fied that he has no op­po­si­tion to Trinida­di­ans par­tic­i­pat­ing, he urged the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to pro­vide a clear analy­sis of vis­i­tors’ av­er­age spend­ing and dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween Trinida­di­ans com­ing sole­ly for Car­ni­val ver­sus those mere­ly hol­i­day­ing.