By Latrishka Thomas
Participants in this year’s Carnival are still owed their prize monies months after the summer festival.
Some have taken to social media to express their frustration, noting that this has become a regular occurrence.
Art ‘Drastic’ Philip, a finalist in the 2022 Groovy Soca Monarch competition, told social media that “all I want for Christmas is my prize money”.
He went to say that after more than four months of waiting he is tempted to “start talking the things”.
King Zacari, who crowned winner of the social commentary segment of the Calypso Monarch competition, also shared his displeasure saying: “Better can be done because money is being bantered about the place doing non-sense.”
The five-time Calypso Monarch was especially upset by the fact the winners were given empty envelopes on stage.
“The insult of it all is that when we were on stage, they had people posing with empty envelopes … they should have told me that it is just a show; I would have understood,” he stated.
Meanwhile, spokeswoman in the Ministry of Creative Industries, Cecelia Thwaites told Observer that they are “working on processing payments as speedily as [they] can”.
She, however, disclosed that there is a funding issue.