BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A press release issued by the National Carnival Committee today (Jan. 12) has declared that because of an error of “omission”, the Best J’Ouvert Troupe winner for the Sugar Mas 44 celebrations was changed from Xtreme Nation to Red Devils.
“Upon reviewing the recent Carnival results for J’ouvert Troupes, an omission was identified with the scoring at a particular judging station. As a result, Red Devils has now been declared the J’ouvert Troupe winner.As such, the original 1st place is now 2nd, 2nd now 3rd, and 3rd, now 4th.”
The release explained that all registered troupes are placed on a master list, copies of which were given to the judges and the auditors of Grant Thorton Accounting Firm. It further explained that the discrepancy arose because although the Red Devils registered with that name, their paraphernalia carried the name “Masquerade Devils” and one of the judges was probably unaware that they were one and the same.
“The Red Devils’ organizers registered their J’ouvert Troupe as Red Devils. However, their particular theme for J’ouvert was Masquerade Devils, which was displayed on their paraphernalia. As Red Devils passed a specific judging station on J’ouvert morning, the judge at that particular point explained that he/she only saw the name ‘Masquerade Devils’. Consequently, he/she did not award any points to the Red Devils in the Table provided on his/her score sheet. Instead, on a blank space below, on the same score sheet, said judge awarded points, as per the criteria, to the Masquerade Devils as a safety precaution.
“The Auditors then received the score sheets at the end of the judging process and tabulated the scores. Based on the fact that this specific judge did not assign points to Red Devils on his/her score sheet, the Auditors did not include a score for Red Devils for this single location.”
A request was made by the management of Red Devils to peruse the scoresheets, as explained in the correspondence, and the discrepancy was spotted after the National Carnival Committee reviewed them.
“On Thursday January 8th 2016, a member of the Red Devils’ management team requested to see the score sheets which is a practice allowed by the NCC. When the NCC reviewed the scores, the aforementioned omission was realized.
“The Auditors were then asked by the NCC to jointly review all scores. This was done on Friday January 9th, 2016. After it was deemed that Red Devils and the Masquerade Devils are indeed the same entity, the missing points were included and assigned to Red Devils. The new Tabulation resulted in the revision of the winning positions.”
Scores were not provided prior to the dissemination of today’s press release from the Carnival Committee. It however explained what the prior points were and what they now are following the correction.
“The final meeting to confirm the new results was held with the Auditors on Monday January 11th, 2016. The respective J’ouvert troupes were then invited to a meeting on Monday January 11th, 2016 to inform them of the omission, premise for decision making, and the new results.
“Original Standings: 1st Place – Xtreme Nation – 188 points, 2nd Place – Small Axe Band Shiggidy-Shack – 179 points, 3rd Place – GM Addix – 163.8 points. New Standings 1st Place – Red Devils – 189.5 points, 2nd Place – Xtreme Nation – 188 points, 3rd Place – Small Axe Band Shiggidy-Shack – 179 points.”
In an interview with SKNVibes Entertainment, Antoine Laws, co-owner of the Red Devils enterprise, informed that the scores were requested so as to ascertain where the Troupe’s shortcomings were. He said he is pleased with the final outcome and thanked patrons for their support over the past six years.
“Through the past six years, we have been participating in Carnival producing a J’Ouvert troupe. We are of the opinion that we bring innovation to the table while providing a premium package to our patrons. In light of this, we requested our scores from the Carnival (Committee) to point out our weaknesses and find ways to improve ourselves for the future. This is something that we do every year. Last year we came in last, we got our scores, we were fine and we tried to better ourselves this year.
“This year we asked for our scores and…they normally produce the scores, we never got any scores. We asked for our scores, we got called into a meeting Monday and we were aware of the situation just like everybody else. We are content with the new outcome and we would like to thank our patrons for their continued support throughout the years and we look forward to serving them again.”
