Good morning. It is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you that I have resigned as a Director of Spicemas and the Chairperson of the National Carnival Queen Pageant. This is not a decision I made lightly given all the hard work put in to date.
Those were the words used by St Lucian-born Siobhan Lloyd in the wake of a fall-out with officials of the Dickon Mitchell-led Congress government in the build-up to the annual carnival activities in August.
It has been the first major resignation from any of the carnival bodies appointed to serve under the one-year old administration at the Botanical Gardens in Tanteen.
Lloyd who is believed to be an attorney-at-law by profession, has come in for heavy criticisms over the presence of three anti-government persons in the Queen Show activities – Sherma Wells, Brenda Baptiste and Jenny Simon.
Talk show host and political activist Kem Jones who campaigned heavily for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the build-up to the general elections just over a year ago was not happy with the role of the trio in the Queen Show activities.
A number of pro-Congress supporters took offense to the presence of the trio in the Queen show event at the expense of other qualified persons like Ricky Keens-Douglas and Urias Peters.
Lloyd reportedly told her close aides that there was “political interference” in the event and took the decision to withdraw her services from the carnival body.
“My goal for this year’s Pageant was to raise the bar, reignite interest and to provide the seven young ladies with every opportunity to shine,” she told close aides.
Lloyd reportedly came into Grenada as part of the passport-selling scheme known as Citizenship By Investment (CBI).
She is believed to be associated with the developers of a CBI hotel project in the St David’s area.
THE NEW TODAY also understands that there might have been a bit of friction between Sports and Culture Minister Ron Redhead and some members of the Queen Show committee on the issue of accountability, especially on the issue of finance.
The Minister is said to have raised concerns over accountability with the staging of carnival especially with respect to the annual Government Subvention to those bodies involved in the running of the celebrations.
According to an inside source, Minister Redhead complained specifically to Lloyd that with the Queen Show only weeks away no one had even submitted to him a report on the activities held to date.
He also expressed concerns that certain things were happening on the Queen Show committee without any knowledge of the members of the Board.
Lloyd reportedly told Minister Redhead that it appears some persons had no trust in her and opted to bow out on the grounds that she “would not be permitted the artistic freedom to execute the Pageant.”
The Queen Show will be held August 6 at the national stadium at Queen’s Park.
Seven Queens representing the various parishes on the island have been in training for several weeks to contest for the top prize.