NCDF bawls at NCC’s $50,000 fee

One of the two national bands associations, the National Carnival Development Foundation (NCDF) yesterday announced it would be holding a media conference today to announce the cancellation of its January 22 street parade in St James, organised to highlight NCDF member bands, because of the NCC fee and because the NCDF was omitted from the decision-making process.

In a release issued yesterday, the NCDF stated that the Parade of the Bands Committee of the NCC had made a decision to introduce a system to penalise large bands which fail to comply with the rules of the parade and that this "would adversely affect its members on Carnival Monday and Tuesday."

However, when contacted yesterday, Chairman of the NCC, Kenny De Silva categorically stated that the said fee was merely a suggestion from the Mas’ fraternity and it hasn’t even reached the Board as yet.

He expressed surprise that the suggestion was being taken so seriously, adding that the fee if instituted will be refunded to each band adhering to the rules.

The NCC boss also said that the NCC was going to revisit the length of time on stage allotted to the different sizes of bands because it is the feeling of the Board that Carnival is going to be very big this year.

Meanwhile De Silva divulged that Carnival 2006 will be broadcasted exclusively on NCCTV Channels 4 and 16, the channels that broadcast last year’s show after Government shut down NBN.

The new Government station will not be operational before Carnival.