His voice cracking with emotion, the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Neville Wisdom sprang to the defence of himself, his family and officers of his ministry today as he tabled the Junkanoo report that was exposed by the Bahama Journal yesterday.
While the Minister skirted the report, he said, “There were no acts of impropriety on the part of myself, my family, or any member of my ministry as borne out by the report from the auditors,” Minister Wisdom told parliamentarians.
He said he asked his youngest brother, Evon, who for years under the previous administration printed Junkanoo tickets, to relinquish his pre-existing Junkanoo arrangement with Junkanoo.
“I told him he was to have nothing to do with Junkanoo,” Minister Wisdom said. “That’s how we operate on this side and that’s the same Evon who has represented this country in athletics.”
For more than an hour, Minister Wisdom craftily stayed away from the crux of Junkanoo issues contained in the report audited by the accounting firm Deloitte and Touche.
But once he cut to the heart of the matter, insisting that there was no wrongdoing on his part, emotions ran high – high enough for Free National Movement Member of Parliament Brent Symonett to retort that the opposition gave its permission for a communication on the Junkanoo report, not an emotional speech.
Mr. Symonette questioned whether Minister Wisdom was suggesting that the official opposition had made any accusations against the Wisdom’s family.
That’s when the minister, who is the M.P. for Delaporte, sat in his seat, sipped a glass of water and wiped his face. When he stood again, he focused his attention on some of the figures in the report that details $1.2 million in losses.
Minister Wisdom said if all of the Junkanoo seats were sold and if more money had been made from marketing and advertising efforts, then more revenue would have been made from the most recent Junkanoo season.
Ticket sales totalled $672,000, according to the report. Minister Wisdom had said he expected to gross $3 million from the five parades. Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Neville Wisdom tabled the long awaited Junkanoo Report in the House of Assembly today. (Photo by Otis Forbes)
Trying to justify the loss, he asked rhetorically, “What price for culture? What price for Junkanoo?”
“Much has been said about the cost of national human development, much has been said about that,” Minister Wisdom said. “But I contend that we can build as many roads, put up as many street lights, attempt to resolve difficulties in the financial services sector and improve health care, but if you have a deteriorating society, a society where the rule of law is threatened, a society where descent law-abiding Bahamians have their existences affected to the point where they have to turn their homes into fortresses, then all is lost.
“However, we feel that all is not lost.”
He said that, “We have moved Junkanoo forward. In some cases experience will show that adjustments will have to be made for future parades. But in the short time of less than five months before the first parade, officers of my ministry and members of the National Junkanoo Committee had to dedicate numerous hours and worked beyond the call of duty to make these parades and activities happen.”
Minister Wisdom said his ministry is reviewing the most recent Junkanoo season, re-evaluating the price structure of tickets, the height of bleacher seating. He also said there are plans to establish a Junkanoo secretariat.
Mnister Wisdom added that there are also plans to establish a Junkanoo commission.
The Bahama Journal
