Schools soca monarch not defending title

Sergio Camejo, reigning secondary schools soca monarch, will not defend his crown. Camejo, other winners and finalists are yet to receive their prize money from last year. Sergio and his brother Stefan were crowned secondary and primary schools soca monarchs respectively.

The competition’s fate is also in doubt as Newsday was told the event has been “passed on” to the Education Ministry by a Caribbean Prestige Foundation (CPF) representative.

Peter Scoon is chairman of the CPF.

Parents, like Camejo’s father Enrico, have formed a group called The Parents and Guardians of the School Soca Artistes.

Enrico told Newsday the award ceremony for the competition is usually held in the months just after Carnival, April, May, June and even July. But after both sons won the competition, “we waited, we saw May coming, June, July and around May __ June we started asking CPF when the prize-giving ceremony would be.”

He said there was never any mention of what the prize money would be. In 2016, he said, there was a reduction in the prize money with the secondary soca monarch getting $30,000 (it was previously $40,000) and the primary getting $15,000 (previously $20,000).

But last year, the participants had no idea what they were competing for.

Hearing of the foundation’s financial difficulties through “the grapevine” Enrico said he knew there would be turbulence.

When the latter half of 2017 arrived, Enrico tried to call the CPF only to discover the office was “closed down.”

“We are the only finalists of a competition in 2017 that have not been paid at this point. Seeing that they issued on the Newsday that they are having the 2018 International Soca Monarch competition, no one called us from CPF to tell us what is happening.”

Enrico said the children often used the prize money to produce a song for the following year’s competition. “Now they have been robbed that opportunity because they have not been paid.”

He said the children, parents and guardians are really hurt and torn by what has happened.