POINT FORTIN’s “second Carnival” for the year is here and bandleaders for the first Carnival, held last February 27 and 28, have not yet been informed about who the winners of that competition are.

Also they have had no word as to when the prize money for that Carnival competition will be paid.

Yet there was a newspaper report that named the Techier Village, Point Fortin Carnival band, Royalty, as the winner of the borough’s 2006 Carnival competition.

This has caused other bandleaders and interested persons to ask why no other band or bandleader in the south-western borough has been informed by the Carnival committee who are the winners of the competition.

The April 21 report was that “the streets of Point Fortin will become a sea of red, white and black when the J’Ouvert band, ‘Royalty’, hits the streets with their presentation, ‘On D Road to Germany’ on May 6, as part of the Borough Day celebrations”.

May 6 is carded to celebrate the big day of feteing with J’Ouvert and contemporary mas competitions, traditional mas parade and Pan-on-the-Move and starts at 4 a.m.

The report further stated that “Royalty is the defending Borough Day J’Ouvert champions.

“The band also won the Carnival band of the Year title for 2005 and 2006 in Point Fortin.”

The problem is that up to as late as May 1, 2006, Point Fortin Carnival bandleaders, except Royalty maybe, had received no word from the Carnival committee about who were the winners of their 2006 Carnival competitions.

Even before April 21, when that report was published, Point Carnival people had been talking to TnT Mirror about how disappointed they were about the borough’s Carnival committee failure to announce who were the winners of the 2006 Carnival competitions, and when the bands would be receiving their prize money.

A spokesman for the frustrated Point Fortin Carnival people said: “Two months have passed since Carnival and the man they put in charge, Marlon Richardson, just watching you in your face and passing you straight.

“After all, bandleaders are anxious to know if they are winners of prizes as they are depending on some of the prize money to help offset their Carnival 2006 band production expenses.

“The Borough Carnival Committee should know by now that good things not cheap and where taxpayers money is concerned, we deserve the best for putting out our best.

“They must remember that Point Fortin Carnival was dying and it’s men like Cisco Daniel, Dr. Vincent Lasse, Ivan King, John Paul, Jeff, Legends and others who struggled and are still struggling to bring back and improve Point Carnival.

“With the increase in monies given to the Corporations and regional bodies for Carnival and the increase given by the National Carnival Commission (NCC) to encourage the mas.

“We who have struggled to keep the Carnival alive here in Point would like to see some of that money come down to us.

“We who have struggled to bring a little life back to Carnival would like to know how much money was given by the Point Fortin Borough Corporation (PFBC) towards our Carnival.

“We would like to know how much money was given by the NCC toward the Point Fortin’s Carnival.

“We are of the view that some of the things that happened here for 2006 Carnival are the most ridiculous we have seen and we do not want them repeated.

“For example, people played J’Ouvert, they brought out J’Ouvert bands, but the Carnival committee made up of Richardson and his friends decided J’Ouvert yes, but no J’Ouvert competitions.

“But the committee said that they were holding Monday night mas competition.

“We would like to know if that is so because the money for the J’Ouvert competition was put towards the Monday night mas competition February 27.

“We were out there up to after 1 a.m. Tuesday, February 28 and not a band paraded for that competition.

“So we would like to hear from the Carnival committee how many bands took part in the Monday night mas competition and who are the winners, and how much prize money they got.

“We want to know what has become of the money set aside for that competition.

“We want the Carnival committee to let us know who the winners of the 2006 carnival competitions are before we move on to Borough Day Carnival.

“We want to have our prize money before the Borough day Carnival and an account of how much money was allocated to Point Carnival generally and how the money was spent.

“And that ridiculous situation of Richardson hosting a gala by invitation only party for his friends in theatre and politics to launch the Point Fortin Carnival must not happen again.

“Imagine for the Point Fortin Carnival launch the bandleaders were invited to Richardson’s party and could bring only one other person.

How do you tell the workers in your mas camp that stupidness that the Carnival launch is by ticket only and the bandleader could bring along only one person.

“As soon as you put money in them politicians’ hands they does start to do stupidness with the money.

“We don’t want that here in Point Fortin.

“This 2006 Carnival committee is boo coming and going.

“Two months have passed since the national Carnival went and up to now they can’t tell us how the five or six bands that paraded for the judges placed.

“Borough day Carnival is here and we still don’t know how we placed in the national Carnival competition.

“We don’t know yet when the winners of the first Carnival competition will get their prizes and that is rubbish.

“We want to see things go right in Carnival in Point Fortin.

“If the 2006 Carnival committee can’t do better than what they have done, they must move on to something else.”