By NEWSDAY REPORTER Monday, January 3 2011
ARTS and Multiculturalism Minister Winston “Gypsy” Peters has refused to comment on a decision last week Thursday by PanTrinbago not to accept his offer of an $800 performance fee for this year’s Panorama and a $2 million dollar first prize for best large steel band.
“No comment. I have no comment to make on that matter,” Peters told Newsday. At last Thursday’s meeting at City Hall on Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, PanTrinbago members formally and “unanimously” rejected the position taken by Cabinet on the matter of reducing the players’ remittance from $1,000 to $800.
In a statement, PanTrinbago criticised the “insult” to members’ “collective intelligence” by the State where $2,000,000 was being offered as a first prize, whilst taking back almost the equivalent amount by way of reducing the Players’ Remittance — a question PanTrinbago claimed “of taking from the players to pay prize money.”
On December, Cabinet approved a compromise offer first made to PanTrinbago’s executive by Peters on December 21. Then, Peters proposed the group use its $1 million, which would have been used to pay the first prize, to make-up the difference between his $800 performance fee offer and the $1,000 that was paid in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Among those who voiced their displeasure with the offer was Captain of BP Renegades, Candice Andrew. She said the $800 and $2 million offers were disrespectful to the steel pan. “We need to get respect for the national instrument, because they are not disrespecting us, they are disrespecting the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago.”
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