Gadsby-Dolly digs in on pan payment

Despite calls from regional heads of Pan Trinbago for Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly to get the National Carnival Commission (NCC) to pay panmen directly, she has not budged from her position.

At present they are due to be paid their fees for 2018 and outstanding prize money through the organisation’s central executive.

Gadsby-Dolly said the situation with Pan Trinbago is unfortunate, but the pan players are not the only people owed.

She said: “It is much more complex than that. The outstanding bills from Panorama 2018 are an estimated $8 million over the Pan Trinbago 2018 allocation.

“Under these circumstances, Pan Trinbago has been written to repeatedly by the NCC asking for its payment plan to defray these expenses with the remaining portion of the allocation. They have not yet responded.”

She added that notwithstanding this, the public is reminded that the gate receipts from Panorama 2018, estimated at $3 million, were collected solely by Pan Trinbago, and suggested that the pan fraternity consider asking the executive to use these funds to offer some redress to pan players.

Gadsby-Dolly reiterated: “Pan Trinbago is a private institution. Their financials have always been theirs to manage. We intersect only on the matter of funding for Carnival events. On that front, we have put systems in place to reduce the bulk handling of monies by Pan Trinbago, allowing the NCC to play a more frontal role and exert more control on the expenditure of these public monies.”

Pan Trinbago had a governance issue, she said.