Minister: ESC to receive $1.5m, venue allocated
Published: Fri, 2011-07-22 21:59
RHONDA RAMBALLY
The paddock area in the forecourt of the Grand Stand at the Queen’s Park Savannah which government announced yesterday will be the venue for the Emancipation Support Committee’s Emancipation Village. Photos: BRIAN NG FATT The Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) is expected to receive $1.5 million dollars from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism. The committee will also receive assistance for preparations for the Emancipation Village and $90,000 from the Tourism Development Company. Speaking at the post-cabinet news briefing yesterday, Arts and Multiculturalism Minister Winston “Gypsy” Peters said he would have liked to give the money to ESC “in a more timely manner” but “we have to find the money.”
Peters said it was always Government’s intention to support the ESC and any indication it did not want to assist “was far from the truth.” He said: “The Emancipation Support Committee, as I speak, has gotten $90,000 from a promised $150,000 from the Tourism ministry, so that was to help them in preparations for whatever small things they have to do. “My ministry, the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism...we are going to be giving them $1 million which they would have any time today (yesterday) or tomorrow (today).
“They are also going to be getting $500,000 from the Office of the Prime Minister.”
Peters said the Paddock area of the Queen’s Park Savannah has been granted to the ESC and “they accepted.” He said a drainage problem at the Grand Stand had “to be corrected and that “we didn’t want to take the chance and put the Emancipation Support Committee in that particular location that they wanted to be at to carry on their activities.” Additionally, Peters said assistance for infrastructure will also be given to the ESC “to put up some of the tents and help them with infrastructure...whatever that is.”
He said he couldn’t understand what “this whole thing is about.”
He added that several peripheral organisations would receive funding up to $400,000. “The ministry cannot in any way support all of these but we are and have been supporting all the other organisations to the tune of maybe $300,000 or $400,000. “So it is quite a lot of money that we have to spend in order to keep these activities going,” Peters said. The National Joint Action Committee will receive $500,000, he said.
ESC responds: News to us
ESC chairman Kafra Kambon said Government’s funding was not even half of what it had requested.
Kambon said use of the Paddock area was unsuitable since the activities required a covered space.
He said: “It is so serious. We are going to have an executive meeting (yesterday) to decide what we do in light of all of this information.” Kambon said the ESC became aware of the “new information” yesterday.
He said no one at an “official level” communicated the information to them and now their plans will
