Carifesta cost ‘coming’

The full cost of hosting CARIFESTA XV will be revealed once all assessments are completed and prepared.

This was the word from Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Senator Dr Shantal Munro-Knight recently, adding that evaluations were ongoing following the festival’s conclusion on Sunday.

“As we always do as a Government, we’ll come to the public when we’re able to share those figures. What I don’t want to do is to put figures on a table and then have to come back and say, ‘Oh, no, that’s not correct’. 

“We really want to be able to do it correctly, make sure we have everything down and that we can have a figure that’s true as much as possible,” she told the MIDWEEK NATION. 

Recently, former Minister of Culture in the previous Freundel Stuart administration Stephen Lashley accused the Government of ‘scandalous’ secrecy over the cost of hosting the ten-day cultural showcase. 

While Munro-Knight declined to respond to Lashley’s comments, she said the information will be disclosed once the report is presented by the margin evaluation specialist attached to the CARIFESTA Secretariat. 

“We wanted to make sure that we could step back and have facts and figures and not just our interpretation of it. So I’m looking forward to getting that report from them and that would allow us to be able to actually kind of effectively measure the success of it and the lessons learned as well.

“We started with a budget. We were able to cut costs in some areas, we had to spend in others. So, once we’re able to do that level of reconciliation, then we’ll be able to see exactly where we land,” she added. 

The minister noted that the resulting infrastructure built to support the CARIFESTA XV brings with it opportunity for future income and investments in both culture and tourism.

“We owe everybody accountability, transparency to the figure, but sometimes development like this, you don’t see until the long term. We now have a space that we didn’t have before, that’s a whole big event as well. How do you measure the potential, for business opportunities as well from that investment to come?

“I hope that people as well will understand that the investment should look not only in terms of a cost, but then what are the long-term benefits that we are going to derive from it, ten, 15 or even five years from now as well.” 

Munro-Knight noted several areas where the success of the event can be measured, as she cited positive sales reported by vendors as well as vested interest in the sale of local goods in other Caribbean markets. 

“I spent quite a bit of time in the Grand Market talking to vendors. There were several vendors who
sold out products and left. There was a Barbadian who said to me she had to go raid her own physical storefront so that she could be putting stock there.

“Several of the vendors reported that for them, it was a very good CARIFESTA in terms of the exposure that they have had. Actually, several of them wanted to come up to me and ask me if Barbados is doing it again next year, not two years from now.” 

Touching on any bids to host the next edition of CARIFESTA, she said that the decision will rest with Cabinet. However, she pointed to Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s intention to host a regional marketplace and events outside of CARIFESTA using the newly-constructed Grand Market.