Pan Trinbago elections: Will there will be a new president?

If elected, Aquil Arrindell hopes to renegotiate a larger space comparable to the one Pan Trinbago had in Trincity for its headquarters.

The San Fernando pan leader is challenging Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore in the October 6 pan elections.

Arrindell is the leader of San City Steel Symphony based at Carib Street, San Fernando.

In August, government announced that Pan Trinbago’s new headquarters would be constructed at the old general post office, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, at an estimated cost of $120 million.

This came after the Prime Minister announced in May that land previously allocated in Trincity for the headquarters would now be used to construct a cricket academy.

An article in August said the Wrightson Road headquarters would be a six-storey, mix-use building with Pan Trinbago's office space, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Tourism Trinidad Ltd, the National Carnival Commission (NCC), a theatre/auditorium with seating for 300, a pan museum and interpretive centre, conference and meeting rooms, rooftop entertainment area, gift shop, cafeteria and parking facilities.

Arrindell has held positions on the pan executive before, under the Keith Diaz administration, and ran for the position of vice president in the last election. This is, however, his first time running for the presidency.

The Arrindell-led slate is called Pan Moving Forward.

In a phone interview on October 1, he said, “We definitely would not want to have any confrontation with the government.

“Whatever government of the day it is, we, as Pan Trinbago, are supposed to work alongside them for the betterment of Trinidad and Tobago and the instrument.

“We would ask the government to renegotiate because that space they gave away was a place we had planned to bring an economic benefit to the country. And we would have to convince the government that we need an equal amount of space somewhere to realise this vision of having a Carnival village.”

He added that his team has a number of plans for the organisation, including a revamped International Panorama.

He also spoke of issues with the current pan administration and work done for the pan community.

He said he decided to run for the presidency after being asked by members to do so.

His first steps in preparing for the campaign was to do a critical assessment of the fraternity, and this meant going from band to band and asking what is needed.

“Whilst visiting bands, I would have realised some of them are in conditions that we can’t wait for an election to fix.

“A group of us would have gotten together and started fixing things in the panyards because we want them to keep functioning,” he said. His campaign began during the pandemic and included a national hamper drive for pannists.

“Every band would have received between six-ten hampers,” he said.

Another project undertaken during his campaign was to install solar lights in some panyards.

His assessment unearthed that some panyards had no access to lighting, one of them being without a light supply for 28 years.

At the time of the interview, he was also installing solar lights at a Mayaro panyard.

Arrindell said that pan's administration after administration, and government after government, did not address these issues.

Another critical issue he hopes to address, if elected, is that of land tenancy.

He recalled the 2022 issue of Woodbrook Playboyz and being moved from the Fitzblackman Drive, Woodbrook space.

Arrindell said most panyards do not have land tenure which meant they could not go to the electricity company for a supply.

Recognising these issues, Arrindell got to work immediately casting floors, hosting workshops on understanding the pan constitution and providing an electricity supply.

He said he visited over 100 bands across Trinidad during his campaign.

However, he has not visited Tobago bands, saying that permission was required to do things in Tobago.

But it was important for him to visit the bands as some might voice their issues but seeing it allowed him to truly understand the magnitude of the bands’ problems and be moved to fix it.

He was introduced to pan by his father. Now at 45 and as leader of San City, Arrindell is responsible for renegotiating an appearance fee from $2,000 to $10,000 for San City.

As its leader, he also invested in studio equipment (audio and video) used in the band's promotional activities as well as content creation/generation.

“This kind of publicity has become an attraction to sponsorship. So people now seeing the story of San City started to feel a personal connection,” he said.

“San City also has a niche market as we perform with brass and singers about 50 per cent of the time. And that is part of the package. If you can’t afford the $10,000 package with everybody, you just get San City and brass, and if you can’t afford that, you get San City Steel.

“We created a niche for ourselves that became attractive in the pan community and outside of it.”

Developing the band like this enabled him to make demands in spaces they were invited to perform. It is this kind of model and leadership he hopes to bring to the pan executive.

Arrindell also wants to have fortnightly concerts, if elected, and hopes to negotiate with countries like Japan, China, or anyone willing to assist with the acquisition of buses and maxis to shuttle people to and from panyards.

He said the slate intends to have fortnightly concerts and plans to negotiate with countries like Japan, China, or anyone willing to assist to get four buses and maxis to shuttle people to panyards.

Any proceeds raised from these events would stay in the panyards to assist with upkeep, he said.

Departments to address land tenure and sponsor issues would also be developed, he said.

“We want to point people to the direction where you can go get certain grants for certain things as an NGO. A lot of the bands don’t have the knowledge and they need the help, they need someone to go to. We want to be a Pan Trinbago who can facilitate that.”

He said his slate wants to develop plans on a micro and macro scale.

On the macro scale, the team hopes to host an international Panorama every four years with rules set by the organisation.

His team also wants to have a tourist space where visitors could get a weekly taste of Carnival.

“It will have our comedy, art, vibe, our calypsonians, our music,” he added.

This space would serve a dual purpose: also having weekly events for young pannists and the buses and maxis purchased would shuttle them safely to and from these events.

All of this is being done with a vision to ensure the organisation weans itself from government-funding and be able to call “its own shots.”

“We want to be a solution to our country’s economic situation at this point in time. Once we are part of the solution, we will be talking to the government in a different light,” he said.

“We will be talking to them in terms of partnership and not begging,” he said.

Arrindell said his team wants to generate enough to give bands a monthly subvention to keep them functioning.

“We believe once there is a steelband functioning in every community in TT, it will be a better place.”

Many headlines this year and last saw positive gains for the pan fraternity, however, none of these benefitted the pan movement, he claimed.

“We are all at the same positions we were in before and after those things.”

The GI Indicator for pan, it becoming the national instrument, pan on the coat of arms etc did nothing for the economic benefit of pannists, Arrindell said.

He said making the organisation financially solvent again began during the Diaz administration as he was required to sign an MoU with National Carnival Commission (NCC).

“The NCC was responsible for bringing down Pan Trinbago’s debt. It just happened under Mrs Beverley Ramsey-Moore and she is just there to take claim for it,” Arrindell said.

Arrindell said he was confident that come Sunday he was set to be the organisation's president.

He also raised the issue of not receiving a delegate list from Pan Trinbago which would allow him and his team to campaign.

“This is five days before the election and the current administration refuses to give us a delegate list. This is not normal practice.”

He said this was not Pan Trinbago’s practise and said six years ago, under the Diaz-led administration, the organisation supplied the opponents with the delegate list.

“I am saying that it is wrong. It is unfair. That list is something that she is privy to and is campaigning with at this point,” he said.

Ramsey-Moore, however, subsequently told Newsday that the list was publicly available.

Referring to a video by Fuad Abu Bakr on September 21, in which he spoke about the elections and the Ramsey-Moore led administration, Arrindell said nothing that was said in that video was inaccurate.

He said Abu Bakr challenged anyone on the Ramsey-Moore executive to debate what was said in the Facebook live.

He added that Abu Bakr was trying to run for Pan Trinbago president but his nomination was rejected.

Arrindell said he has issues with the way Ramsey-Moore conducted meetings.

He said there was a “quiet” among the membership with some expressing to him that he had their support but that they were cautious to openly show this.

Ramsey-Moore responds

Asked to respond to comments by Arrindell, Ramsey-Moore said he was being delusional and would not win.

“He got the pants beaten off his buttocks in 2018. He never stopped campaigning. He has been one of the antagonists since 2018 and has not been able to make a solid contribution," she said in a phone interview.

She said she was not paying attention to his comments, as they were about “destroying the gains we would have achieved.”

Ramsey-Moore added that her slate was pan’s protector.

She said the Arrindell slate was not about movement or building a strong organisation.

Her team, she said, was about global ascendancy and would not be distracted by the noise.

Asked about the list of delegates, Ramsey-Moore said she contested three Pan Trinbago elections – in 2009, 2015 and 2018 – and never received a list from anyone in Pan Trinbago.

“What I do know, as a member going to meetings for several years, it is within me, as an individual, to reach the bands,” she said.

She said contact information for the bands are publicly available.

She said Arrindell was a Pan Trinbago executive for many years and was on the Diaz team.

Ramsey-Moore said her executive was responsible for regaining the support of corporate TT and having clean audits.

She said she was positive that pan members would vote overwhelmingly for her team on Sunday.

In response to Abu Bakr’s video, Ramsey-Moore said he has no band. She said that leaders of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen had said there was no steelband at Mucurapo Road, Port of Spain.

When asked about closing thoughts, Ramsey-Moore said she was pleased that for the first time the organisation was included in the budget under the infrastructure development fund for construction of the Pan Trinbago headquarters.

This was what she is focused on and not, “clearing track for ‘gouti to run.”