Carifesta workers still to be paid

Oct 08, 2008 News

– CEO apologies, promises resolution ‘soon’
It has been over a month since Carifesta X ended,
yet staffers at the Carifesta Secretariat and several performers and other participants are still waiting to be paid.
The controversy over the non-payment erupted yesterday with two Carifesta participants staging a picket outside the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.
Kaieteur News understands that the Government exceeded its $500M Carifesta budget.
It is estimated that a further $200M is owed to the roughly 2,000 participants, including the Carifesta Secretariat’s 35 to 50 staffers.
“People are being very controlled but they are becoming frustrated,” a participant told Kaieteur News.
Contacted yesterday, the Secretariat’s Chief Executive Officer, Nigel Dharamlall, said that all the Secretariat’s accounts will be settled ‘shortly’.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, the delay occurred because of the large number of persons who were involved in the event and the fact that all payments had to be verified.
“The services were produced and we would like to assure everyone that the monies will be paid.
“We apologise (for the delay) but the process has to take a while, because of matters of accountability.”
He confirmed that the monies owed were ‘substantial’, while declining to disclose the specific amount.
Yesterday, actor and producer Aubrey Naughton along with Sonia Yarde picketed outside the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport to demand that they be paid.
Naughton, who acted in the folklore drama ‘Legend of the Silk Cotton Tree’, told Kaieteur News that he and other participants had been “keeping faith” with the Ministry of Culture. They had signed an agreement to be paid before September 8.
But according to Naughton, “They have been telling us ‘next week, hold on, we have no money’…”
Naughton said that they staged the protest because Dharamlall had assured the performers that they would be paid before the Secretarial was dissolved.
“But last week when we went to see him he said that he was no longer in charge and that the Secretariat had been closed.”
It is the second major controversy to hit the mega-event.
At present, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport is attempting to collect several million dollars that it claims Swansea Industrial Associates owes the Ministry for special effects it had failed to provide for the Carifesta X opening ceremony.

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Carifesta workers still to be paid

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