The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Public Services Union President John Pinder yesterday accused the government of copying “the rest of the Caribbean” for planning to spend $9m on promoting and introducing the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival next year.

He also said he was willing to “bet his bottom dollar” that the government would not “break even” and make back the money it spent on promoting the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival product.

“Vacation is supposed to be an experience,” Mr Pinder said. “People go to Orlando just for Disney World. Why we can’t have people coming to the Bahamas just for the Junkanoo experience? The only place in the world that you can experience Junkanoo is in the Bahamas.

“But we refuse to build the product. We would rather copycat what Trinidad and Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean has done, so we call it Carnival. We dare to try something on our own. We don’t dare to lose $9m trying to develop Junkanoo. No, we rather just copy something else.”

In September, Free National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis called for the government to increase funding for traditional Junkanoo festivals instead of launching a new commercial cultural product.

Dr Minnis said the $9m proposed to be spent for the festival should have been used to increase the seed money and prizes offered for the Christmas and Boxing Day Junkanoo parades.

He added that the recent decision to change the festival’s name to include the word Junkanoo was a “face saving” measure to counter backlash from the cultural community.

Yesterday, Mr Pinder offered his own suggestions, saying Junkanoo should be expanded to a week-long event.

“You give them a quick 15 minute review of what Junkanoo looks like, and then you take them through the process of how a goatskin drum is made, how cowbells are made, how a costume is actually built,” he said. “And the end of the day they have to keep coming back, and at the end of their experience, you put them in a Junkanoo group and have them shaking the cowbells and beating the goatskin drums.

The first Bahamas Carnival week is scheduled for May 3-9, 2015 when four major events will be staged. A commission, chaired by former banker Paul Major, will oversee the initiative.

During an official ceremony launching the event at Pompey Square in August, Prime Minister Perry Christie expressed his optimism for the event.