Panmen off to grumbling start

With Christmas gone comes the Carnival season, and the problems associated with getting the Panorama competition off the ground are also making an early start in the new year. According to officials at the Pan Player’ Association, pannists are being sold short as they are only being paid for their skills during the Panorama season, and the association is seeking to encourage panmen to use their skills as a trade throughout the year. Pan Players’ Association president Bevon “Bellies” Phillips is concerned about local panmen who rely on the art of playing pan as means of supporting their families. He said he believes that pan players have been paid little or nothing during the years that they laboured to bring a gift of the only instrument invented in the 20th century to devoted steelband lovers.

Quoting the Tourism and Industrial Development Company’s (TIDCO) report on visitors during the years 1996-2002, Phillips noted that the Government recorded a net profit of US$574.6 million or approximately TT$3.7 billion, and pan players were paid TT$12.6 million during that time. He said this amounts to $200 per player for the years 1996-2000, and $400 per year for the period 2000-2002 for the total of 7,000 players. Phillips said if the Government was paying pan players the minimum wage (which was previously seven dollars and is now nine dollars per hour) for the 250 hours of practice required of panmen, then pan players have been “robbed” of at least $15 million per year for seven years, which totals $105 million.

Phillips said the national instrument could be used to help eradicate poverty by creating a new form of employment for thousands of individuals. Phillips said pan was being taught in schools in Romania, South Africa, Sweden, England, Canada and America. “If the Government implements more of the instrument in schools where the panman receives a 12-month salary as a teacher, then pan players can earn a living out of the Panorama season,” he said. “We want to elevate the status of a pan player by giving him more self-esteem. For too long the names ‘hooligan’ and ‘badjohn’ have been associated with the steelpan,” said Phillips.