NCC: Carnival costs $150m but might earn $1b

CARNIVAL 2023 might have earned as much as $1 billion in indirect benefit to an array of recipients, learnt Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) in a virtual hearing on Wednesday. The PAAC, chaired by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George, grilled National Carnival Commission (NCC) officials including chairman Winston “Gypsy” Peters and CEO Nigel Williams.

PAAC member Ayanna Webster-Roy asked what the NCC had spent on Carnival 2023.

Williams replied $186 million, later clarifying this sum was the NCC’s expenditure for the year, and Peters saying the Carnival spend was about $150 million.

Williams said external to subventions, Carnival had earned an identifiable sum of $15 million, but later said the indirect economic benefits could be near $1 billion.

Webster-Roy asked what plans the NCC had to increase its earnings. Williams replied, “All benefits don’t come directly to the NCC.”

He explained that about $25 million in earnings from tickets sales (known as gate receipts) go to the various Carnival interest groups, not to the NCC.

Webster-Roy sought details of any NCC earnings from renting out vendors booths.

Williams indicated the cost of renting a booth for 5-6 weeks as being $700-$3,000.

He declared, “It’s a give back. It’s a social (development) aspect of Carnival.”

Webster-Roy pressed, to ask how the public was benefiting from the $186 million spend.

Williams replied, “It sounds like a lot.

“But when you compare $186 million investment versus what we know from CSO (Central Statistical Office) – $400 million coming in – and that does not include local expenditure, it could very well take you to, like, $1 billion.

“So you’re talking about spending $200 million and making a billion.” Williams hailed this as a good return on investment.

“Because the NCC’s financials will always reflect a higher expenditure than income, it gives an incorrect perception.”

Peters added, “The NCC is the largest temporary employee in TT. We employ literally thousands of people in a three-month period. “That $150 million we are given (for Carnival) doesn’t redound to the NCC per se.

“It goes to all the aspects of Carnival, including the amount of people we hire – all the people that participate in Carnival, whether they are mas makers, whether they are dancers, singers, builders, the people who put down all these stalls and all of that.

They make money. That money ($150 million) pays all of them. He said after that spend, there was nothing left from that sum. “That $150 million that we give goes to the public of TT, it goes to the citizens of TT, who we hire to work during the period that is Carnival.”

Annisette-George asked about the NCC’s strategic development plan which proposed developing three new carnival products per year.

Peters said the NCC wanted to bolster regional carnivals towards growth by bigger prizes and more incentives.

He hoped for Point Fortin Borough Day celebrations to grow much bigger and for the Republic Day celebrations at Queen’s Park Oval to grow into a mini carnival.

PAAC member Laurence Hislop asked if the NCC had any responsibility for the recent Tobago carnival.

NCC corporate secretary Genelle Martin said the NCC is responsible for TT’s pre-Lenten carnival, but that the “October carnival” was an initiative of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA).

However she said the NCC now intended to have some input by sharing its expertise with the THA.

Peters said since 40 years ago he had been advocating for the development of carnival in Tobago. However he was unsure if the NCC had a formal responsibility for that event.