BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – MINISTER of Culture the Hon. Shawn K. Richards has informed that a particular process, which is in an advanced stage, has to be followed in order for winners of Carnival events and service providers to be given their monetary prizes and earnings, respectively.
In February, the Carnival Committee held a prize giving ceremony on Bank Street where participants and winners of the various Carnival 2015/2016 activities were rewarded for their performances.
Recently however, questions were raised about when outstanding monies owed to the bands which rendered services for the Carnival festivities would be paid. And while speaking with SKNVibes, Carnival Chairman Noah Mills informed that “we are awaiting the second release of funding from the Government to settle several service suppliers accounts of which some bands wll be paid”.
He further indicated that, “We would have gone through and delivered Carnival for 75 percent or there about of the original budget. We would have then submitted a requisition to the Government requesting that the monies be released to settle cash prizes and incentives. That was done in February where it was released after we submitted it in January; hence, we had the prize giving ceremony.”
Minister Richards briefly explained to this publication the process that has to be followed in the Carnival Committee procuring monies for payment and indicated at what stage of the process we are.
“I can’t give a particular date but there is a process by which we have to do a Cabinet submission…submit it to the Ministry of Finance and then take it to Cabinet. We are in the process of doing that. The submission has been done and it’s for the submission to go to Cabinet for a decision to be made and, hopefully, very shortly we would be in a position to make the outstanding expenses.”
Over the years there have been complaints that sums owed to individuals who rendered service during the Carnival festival were taking too long to be paid and calls were made for a system to be implemented to ensure prompt payment.
