de Silva: Audit Carnival

This is how NCC Chairman, Kenny de Silva, sees the future of Carnival.

“Carnival can make money, but we have to reshape the model,” de Silva told Business Day, “We need to take Carnival to the big networks of the world. We need to produce and sell Carnival like a product, in much the way the Olympics is done. The money is made in the coverage.” There is just one problem.

He has no packaged product to sell to them.

The tussle over who has the final control over the festival leaves the NCC in a difficult position, where, de Silva lamented, the organisation has no control over the products of Carnival.

“You cannot develop a way forward unless everybody is on the same page,” said the NCC chairman.

“It’s like I give you a store, but I give control of the goods in it to somebody else. Then I tell the person owning the store that you have got to make this work.” “You have no good to sell. No influence. It’s frustrating.” He said, though, that this year there has been more cooperation between Special Interest Groups and the NCC.

De Silva said this year, based on the direction of the NCC’s line ministry and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, they have taken control of revenue aspects of all the shows for Carnival, pan, calypso and mas. A hard decision that had to be made because of tough economic circumstances.

“Based on what is happening with the economy, we have to go into and see what is happening with the financing and public funds given to these organisations.” It is an action that has not sat well with Pan Trinbago, who’s executives accused both the Culture ministry and the NCC of attempting a hostile takeover of the organisation and pan.

The pan body has even said that the NCC is not fit to supervise it as that organisation is in debt to the tune of $200 million.

De Silva denied this, however.

And it is not a case of different strokes for different folks, with the NCC remaining outside the reach of auditors. De Silva said he welcomed the intervention and his tone throughout the interview suggested that this may happen sooner rather than later.

He told Business Day that an audit of the NCC was the first step in streamlining the management of Carnival. One of the areas he intimated might need review, was the NCC’s staff requirements.

He also said the published accounts after the audit, would help the public make better decisions on whether they have received value for money.

Having a good board in place, formulating good policies, with an executive that would carry out these was also necessary, the NCC chairman said.

As to what this packaged Carnival will look like? De Silva likened it to 2020 cricket, which he said had more viewers than test cricket because people simply did not have the time to look at long matches any more. He saw more produced and edited material.

“You have to sell something that is packaged. It can’t be 8 hours long, or 20 hours long.” He also wants a change of how advertisers are charged for their banners throughout the season and said changes to legislation may be necessary to make this happen.

“Advertisers put up banners all over TT during carnival, but don’t put out anything beyond the cost of the banner. There should be a cost attached which advertisers should pay to the NCC or some other organisation.” The NCC chair said unless action like this was taken, carnival would never realise its true financial potential, since it was the business activity generated by carnival that made money and not necessarily the festival itself.

De Silva said making Carnival a yearround revenue earning opportunity was difficult, however, he did think there should be a space where people could go to see local content at least once a month.

“Carnival is important to all TT,” he said, “It is more important now than in other years. The country has a lot of challenges and needs a good carnival.” He is optimistic that this year, is going to be a good one.