Disappointment Over CARIFESTA Decision

The announcement came at the request of The Bahamas at a CARICOM heads meeting in Barbados last week.

The Bahamas will host the event in 2012.

Philip Burrows, a cultural enthusiast, said there is absolutely no excuse for the decision.

"The cultural community was led to understand that CARIFESTA was going to be the turning point to push other cultural activities in the country forward," he said.

"Now that CARIFESTA is not happening in The Bahamas, the question is where is the country going to move to at this point in time? I feel that it is a slap in the face for the cultural community."

Mr. Burrows acknowledged that The Bahamas would have faced challenges in hosting the event.

"There are things to be done which have to be done and we [had] a year to do it, which is more time than Trinidad had last year," Mr. Burrows said.

"I think if funds and resources have to be put towards those things which apparently have to be done anyway, CARIFESTA was going to be the revitalization of all these things that were going to take place."

President of Ring Play Productions David Burrrows shared similar sentiments. He said that the cancellation reflects poorly on the country.

"It reflects poorly on our value of the arts," he said. "I think that the government undervalues the arts as a tourism product. When people visit a country the first thing they want to know is what do people here do and we are missing that as a country."

He added that 2012 is too long for The Bahamas to wait to host CARIFESTA.

"We are one of the richest Caribbean countries and we have not hosted it yet," Mr. Burrows said. "We have artists in the country [who] wanted to be involved in this. We had persons in the corporate world who were interested. We made a commitment as a country and then we pulled out. I think that reflects poorly."

Minister of State for Culture Charles Maynard explained on Monday that one of the reasons why the government took the decision not to host CARIFESTA next year is that the previous administration made no plans to ensure that The Bahamas was prepared to host the event.

"The Bahamas simply stated to CARICOM what our problems were," he said.

"One of the problems was this particular administration only took office in May of this year and we met absolutely nothing in place in terms of physical infrastructure or human resources in the advancement of CARIFESTA. We had to analyze what work was done. Some work was done in an inter-administrative committee that had no terms of reference, no scope of work and no resources."

Minister Maynard said there are repairs at different cultural venues that have to be completed in order to host an event.

"We now have an opportunity in 2012 to do it properly, to properly put in the infrastructure that is necessary. We have to make some permanent changes to Arawak Cay, which we have already promised in our manifesto. [We have] to make some permanent and much-needed changes to the [Centre for the Performance Arts," he said.

"We have now a period of four years to get the necessary funds from the budget to make these necessary changes so that we can host a proper festival that we would want to do as Bahamians," Minister Maynard added.

President of Doongalik Studios Jackson Burnside said he agrees that The Bahamas was not prepared to host the festival in 2008.

"We have to make major investments in heritage, culture, in the arts in this country," he said. "I don’t think that we were at present taking it seriously enough to present ourselves at the highest level."

CARIFESTA began in Guyana in 1970. The event attracts more than 30 Caribbean and Latin American countries to one venue.