By Robert A. Emmanuel
A plea has come from the Minister of Festivals, Daryll Matthew, to Carnival artists and other contractors to keep their prices at a reasonable level, saying that there will come a point where we “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”.
On the Good Morning JoJo radio programme yesterday, Minister Matthew spoke out about the ever-increasing cost of putting on the country’s biggest festivity.
“It is almost as if from the time we hit February/March, everyone starts to back in their truck, prices go up for every event or service and the day is going to come where we are going to price ourselves out of Carnival.
“And when we have these bills that we can’t pay, it puts a negative stigma over the event; when you google Antigua’s Carnival and you pull up the Daily Observer and you see the headline ‘this stakeholder threatens to boycott,’ nobody wants to be surrounded by confusion,” he added.
He referenced efforts in Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines as part of his call for Antiguan and Barbudan society to “embrace positivity”.
He also revealed that he has asked Carnival service providers to reduce their fees by 30 percent.
“We met with a lot of our stakeholder groups, and we have said to them that it would take two or three years before we can bring the payment of Carnival on par for the event for that year,” he explained.
Minister Matthew said while the payment of outstanding monies has been moving in the right direction, stating that another set of payments will be made this week, he is calling on the hotel industry to help shoulder the costs of Carnival.