“Carnival – No more money, we’re out” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “The Minnis administration aims to completely privatize Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival (BJC) ahead of its 2018 festival, according to Culture Minister Michael Pintard, who yesterday stressed no government should be the business of funding a foreign culture.

Mr. Pintard, who has been adamant about reforming both BJC and the Bahamas National Festival Committee (BNFC), in an interview with The Tribune asserted if the private sector and its entrepreneurs deemed the various components of BJC practical, now would be the time for them ‘to take the lead.’

He added while the government remains opposed to providing any major funding for BJC moving forward, options for subvention would be made available to any group or company that could present a quality plan to host and produce one of these events.’

‘There is no contradiction in our position and certainly no duplicity.”

In my opinion what the Culture Minister and the government has done as it relates to Junkanoo-Carnival is he best option for the government and the private sector as this festival progresses.  Instead of scrapping the entire concept because of their fervent belief that “no government should be in the business of funding a foreign culture”, they have put the future of the festival totally in the hands of the private entities; who probably conceived the concept in the first place, and given them power over whether it succeeds or not.

The Minnis administration has already taken heavy criticism when it announced that BJC would remain but in a different format and here were have it, BJC will still remain but its format will be determined by the private entities which are willing to take this opportunity and prove that it is indeed the peoples time and move this produce forward for the betterment of themselves and The Bahamas as a whole.

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