Bahamian Grammy Award winners Baha Men recorded a song several years ago entitled “Here We Go Again” and that title describes what seems to be the national mood and thought of many Bahamians upon learning about Culture Minister Neville Wisdom’s latest plot for staging this year’s Junkanoo parades.
Many are still healing from the painful wounds inflicted upon the country by the hasty and unwise decisions by Mr. Wisdom and his team as they indicated last year, their desire “to take Junkanoo to another level.”
Lasts years ill planned staging of the three regular Junkanoo parades as well as the two poorly planned and attended Float Parades were executed at another level alright, that so called new level ended up costing the Bahamian tax payers $2 million and change, an amount the country had never experienced before.
Fast forward a year later and once again Minister Neville Wisdom is still at the helm of our cultural machinery with our precious Junkanoo possibly in harms way. In the Nov. 14t edition of the Nassau Guardian under the caption “Bahamian Company Promises Free Junkanoo Bleachers,” Minister Wisdom announced that the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture was awarding a company called C3 with a five-year contract after which the Government will own the bleachers. A representative and “shareholder” from the company said that “We are handling all of the ticketing, in which we plan to get a revenue from the ticketing. At the end of each year we will give the government a percentage of our proceeds. So, we will share the revenues from the ticketing.”
Forgive me if I seem a little confused but who died and made Mr. Shareholder Master and Commander of the hard working funds from hard working Bahamians? Did my eyes read that statement correct? Here is a “shareholder”, not even the president or CFO of the company C3, telling the Bahamian populace how the money will be split.
How in the world can a government just turn over the handling, collection and distributing of funds generated at a state sponsored event to a private vendor, who may not have any experience at handling such an event at the magnitude that Junkanoo has grown to? What kind of checks and balances are in place to ensure that our monies are secured? The shareholder who seems to know a lot of the financial details of C3 to be just a shareholder was also brazen enough to say that “At the end of each year we will give the government a percentage of our proceeds. so, we will share the revenues from the ticketing.” Excuse me but did this guy say that his company and the government will “share” the revenues? Well blow me down. If the government is only getting a “share” of the revenues and this C3 company is getting the majority, then how in the world does Minister Wisdom hope to pay the rest of his bills associated with the parade considering that he literally just gave away his major revenue stream? Oh I forgot there is always that cushion called the treasury. One also has to wonder exactly how much is the real percentage is the Ministry of Youth getting and how much of the pie does C3 take home?
These are real questions that demand real answers but there remains an even more serious question as to who exactly is C3 and what if there is, their experience in erecting bleacher seats as the Minister said “similar to those used last year”?
Why were no principals in this so called company present at such an important press conference announcing what must be their biggest pay day ever as a company? It is really surprising that not a single person from this company thought it important enough to show up for this national pronouncement.
Another statement that was made also raised a major question. Again quoting Mr. Wisdom in the Guardian, he said “Once completed, the aluminum bleachers will be similar to those rented last year.” Hmmmm. One has to wonder where a seemingly new company like C3 (considering no one has ever heard of such a firm in this business or they could have been hired from last year) would muster up enough cash or credit as an upstart to purchase bleachers similar to those the Canadians took with them, or did the Canadian forget to pack the bleachers when the shipped sailed?
The other serious question is did Mr. Wisdom receive Cabinet approval this time around for his latest decision? With all of the heat and doubt emanating from last year’s controversy, I would have thought the Prime Minister would have insisted that along with the Minister of Tourism, that he, Minister Wisdom and C3 executives attend this important press conference to announce what their party campaigned on, “Putting Bahamians First” as well as to calm the fears and concerns of the public regarding the possible subtle return of the Canadian born bleachers. One has to wonder why the PM was not invited to the Press Conference and if he was off the island why not wait until he had returned? Maybe the PM wants to stay as far away from trouble as much as possible.
Finally the Minister should be commended for swallowing his pride and reducing the parades from five to the normal three and for discontinuing the poorly developed float parades. Minister Wisdom was also smart to move Junior Junkanoo back to where it belonged, Bay Street and for allowing the pre-judging to be done on Bay Street as well. However Mr. Wisdom must realize that he is not out of the woods just yet. There are serious rumors that Junkanoo leaders are upset with the new deal and that there might not be a need for all those seats if there is no Parade this Christmas and New Years. I shall as the country wait and see what trick Mr. Wisdom plans to pull out Yours, etc.,
By Ken Harris
Letter To The Editor
