Harnessing Carnival

If Trinidad and Tobago could harness the high level of productivity and commitment of workers producing costumes for Carnival bands, as well as utilise the energy expended on preparation of steelbands for Panorama and Carnival days for use on a year round basis, it could attain developed nation status before the much talked about 2020. Whether they are stitchers, that is seamstresses and tailors; wire benders and the various craftsmen and women who bead costumes or produce fancy footwear or the general helpers, they work steadily, sometimes way into the night all within tight schedules to achieve desired levels of production. Producing a Carnival band is a business, admittedly a small business, but a highly disciplined one. Deadlines have to be met, for unlike most goods which have a year round market, the tacit shelf life of Carnival costumes ends before Ash Wednesday.

But alongside the productivity there is the demonstrated mix of skills and quality, as it is critical that neither the costume nor footwear must come apart, even after two days of vigorous dancing, jumping and prancing. The foreigners and the overseas-based Trinidadians and Tobagonians who fly in year after year to play mas take back with them their Carnival costumes, whose designs and quality workmanship, along with the festival itself of which they are a crucial part, promote this country. Failure of the band leaders, middle management workers and general helpers to meet deadlines means not only that customers would refuse to pay for the costumes, but the band would become history. The workers and general helpers understand this and their high levels of productivity are pushed even higher as more orders come in as Carnival nears. Several decades ago, when costumes of many bands would be ready by Carnival Saturday or Carnival Sunday, all too often because of a combination of the lateness of bookings and members’ payments, along with production only beginning after New Year’s Day, today’s large and medium sized bands place advertisements in newspapers advising of the days in the week preceding Carnival when costumes can be collected. In turn, actual work on many costumes for the larger bands begins several months before Carnival, either for promotional display at band launchings or on Web sites, and production goes into high gear in the two or three months preceding Dimanche Gras — Carnival Sunday.

These are factors which the Tourism and Industrial Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (TIDCO) could promote. Former Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Quan Yew, clearly had not bothered himself with the productivity, commitment, quality of work and skills development that went into Trinidad and Tobago’s annual festival, when he dismissed the Carnival mentality of Trinbagonians. Quan Yew refused to look beyond the street dancing and the costumed displays of the pre-Lenten festival to the hard work that went into making the spectacle a success. If however, the country’s work force can duplicate the pre-Carnival productivity, this would effectively bring down the cost of production making our goods — and this is critical to TT’s economic and social development — more competitive in the domestic, regional and international market place. Unfortunately, no public or private sector group, including TIDCO, has yet come forward with concrete ideas of how to bridge the gap between Carnival productivity and day to day plant, agricultural and otherwise out of Carnival productivity. Meanwhile, ironically, normal work productivity drops at Carnival time.