French Quarter/Marigot: --- The Board members and the organizers of the Committee of Traditions and Culture (CTC) were inexperienced and were mostly playing politics when organizing the Caribbean Festival; that is according to persons that worked throughout the preparation of the Caribbean Festival.
The sources said they were recommended to the CTC said the minute they began discussion with the CTC board they were told that there is no money involved and if they wanted to be part of the festival then would have to do it for free. The CTC received over Euros 350,000 to organize the Caribbean Festival.
The Collectivity gave the CTC a subvention of Euros 155,000 while the tourist office gave an undisclosed amount of monies and Semsamar also supported the project. It should be noted that the Collectivity has 51% ownership shares in Semsamar while the Tourist Office also a department of the Collectivity. It is clear that most of the monies that were awarded to CTC are government funding and an investigation into the spending of these funds during a recession is needed. An investigation should also begin regarding the awarding of the security contract to one of the CTC board members, clarity should also be provided on the amount of monies this security company that is under investigation was paid.
The sources who were close the organizin committee said on several occasions the local participants had to leave the field because CTC were not providing basic materials for the practicing.
“Things were so badly organized that the St. Martin troops did not even have water set aside for them on July 14th while other troops from overseas had their water and other beverages set aside.” The person who spoke to this reporter anonymously said someone who was assisting with the St. Martin troops had to make sure they got on the truck and took water that was set aside for the foreign revelers and gave to the St. Maarten children. The source said another sad experience was for them to see that the children and other revelers who came from Martinique had a special bus taking them from the Beach Plaza Hotel to the field while the local revelers had to get there by foot.
The source further explained they cannot understand what the CTC did with the monies they got simply because monies were not spent on the St. Martin troops, they said they have witnessed the drama between the choreographer and Gayle Mussington which on most occasions was disrespectful. Speaking of the emails the person said they saw them and it was clear that Mussington had no respect for Walker who had to wait a very long time before he obtained the signed contract from CTC. SMN News was privileged to see the emails and we were shocked to see the spelling mistakes and grammar errors in the emails sent by Mussington to Walker.
One thing that was very noticeable is Mussington is rather young and inexperienced when it comes to organizing these kinds of activities. They said it was clear that Mussington was under severe pressure from the overseas promoter and due to that, she was severely stressed out. “It is my opinion the CTC should respect the contract they have with Kofi Walker and pay him the monies that they owe him. Walker worked hard with the revelers on St. Martin and he is an asset to the community. Right now Walker is doing St. Martin justice by having summer camps for students who do not have an alternative.” There are local people who have free time on their hands and they are not doing anything for the youths while Walker a foreigner is doing all he can to decrease delinquency without recognition.
Efforts made by this reporter to contact president of the CTC Joel Dormoy and Gayle Mussington for comments were futile up to press time.