Fay Ann on ISM: Starting from scratch

Former CPF (Caribbean Prestige Foundation) chairman Peter Scoon is hard to reach to discuss the International Soca Monarch (ISM) contest.

When asked if Scoon had left any unfinished business at CPF, the organisation that produces the annual ISM, new chair Fay-Ann Lyons-Alvarez said: “What Peter had he had, I am operating from scratch and a budget presented to me.

"When I took over I got some calls and was presented with a few invoices from some artistes who he is owing but perhaps Peter kept most of the paperwork at his other establishments.”

She said she has no idea how much is outstanding to artistes and suppliers.

Lyons-Alvarez is operating out of a new ISM office on Maraval Road, St Clair, a property on loan from promoter Randy Glasgow.

She said Scoon himself first approached her to come on board to manage the ISM, but she did not like the way all aspects of it were run.

“It was most unprofessional and I couldn’t be involved in such an entity.”

However, in the last few years, she has been giving support to the competition wherever she could, in the background, by doing things such as cooking for the workers/artistes on finals night.

But she felt the competition needed "an injection" to come back to what it was, and when CPF director Geoffrey Wharton-Lake called her to take it over, she answered the call.

Among those seeking Peter Scoon is Exim (Export/Import) Bank. which took out newspaper ads asking the public to help find him but up to last week it too was unsuccessful.

A representative of the bank told Newsday Scoon is indebted to the bank and said he last did business with is “quite a while back.”

Calls over the last week to Scoon’s business Media 21 were answered by a female voice taking information and promising Scoon would return the call. He is yet to do so.