Please permit me to express to the nation a few issues that have been on my mind for quite some time as it relates to our major festival called Carnival.
I would like to first thank the outgoing CEO Mr. Kelvin Jacobs for his contributions and say congrats to Mr. Cecil Noel on his recent appointment as the new CEO.
Mr. Noel has had a long view as to our major festival strengths and failures and as such would be poised to lend valuable assistance to this new dispensation as we strive to make Spicemas one of the biggest and best festivals in our region.
One cannot stress the value of this occasion to our country’s economy and as such the serious task ahead of ensuring that the product is improved and sold with an all Grenadian flavour.
There are lots of work to do as it relates to harnessing and showcasing all our unique culture with the intent to make our mas a truly spectacular one – for too long some aspects overshadowed our true indigenous mas such as the shortknee, Veco, Wild Indian and Old mas.
I know that Mr. Noel’s involvement has been with the steelband and I have noticed your dedication and long service to such, as your community band has never seemed to suffer from lack of organisation.
As it relates to having a more vibrant economic spin-off it’s important that we guard against the external forces coming to take valuable financial resources away from our festival and in return leave nothing.
An incident that stands out in my mind is that of the Harbor Master cruise boat that visited our shores for the last festival.
I dare ask – of what value is this ship to our festival? If you ask me it is zilch, as a matter of fact it has left our island battered and bruised, loss of valuable foreign exchange as it was designed to leave very little on our shores as most of the high revenue streams were controlled by the ship’s owners.
Can anyone tell me how we benefited? Instead it resulted in our national son being severely scarred physically and psychologically from the cold and callous actions of a few, these actions could have resulted in him also losing his life as he ended up in the sea water.
His career was ascending to the mountain top only to be placed in limbo by an unruly untrained crew. He has not competed since and the guilty ones are up and about their business making their living.
This is a clear indication that we cannot take any more chances with this particular ship and its crew that we had welcomed onto our shore.
I shudder at the thought as to what would have happened to a Grenadian doing an act like this to a national hero of Trinidad.
This event does not sell our Spicemas one bit and this ship not being here would not take nothing away from our Carnival, I strongly want to say KEEP THE HARBOUR MASTER IN ITS MASTERS’ HARBOUR.
Grenada Speaks