The St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) will meet with band leaders and calypsonians tonight, Wednesday, January 5, in the first series of Carnival stakeholder meetings in preparation for Carnival 2011.
The meetings will be held separately for the bands and calypsonians. The meeting for the bands will be at 6:00pm followed by the calypsonians at 7:00pm. Both meetings will be held at the Legislative Hall in the Government Administration Building in Philipsburg.
The SCDF is urging all bands and calypsonians interested in participating in Carnival 2011 to make an effort to attend the meetings and to be on time. The SCDF will apprise both groups of progress made with finances and outstanding prize monies thus far as well as the schedule for Carnival 2011 and other matters.
The new Executive Board of the SCDF, elected on September 30, 2010 and comprising of President Stuart Johnson, Treasurer Erno Labega and Secretary Mike Granger are ultimately responsible for straightening out a financial situation that deteriorated over the last two years.
Johnson has repeatedly stated that the financial audit for government will take some time because of the magnitude of work to be done on the finances. Once that audit is complete, the report will be presented to government. Government still has approximately Naf, 220,000 in subsidy funding for the SCDF.
"We have been forthcoming on every front with regard to the financial situation, is has been the priority for us. Our participants are still owed prize monies, we have significant outstanding with service providers. But we are thankful that everyone has been very patient with us. As a new body what we inherited was not a rosy financial picture by any means but we have accepted that challenge and we will get there," Johnson said.