Three to four more weeks have passed and still no accountability of the
monies spent on the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival event in Grand Bahama and
New Providence. If this was not a failure, would someone please explain
why not since Mr. Major has not stuck to
his words and come forth more quickly with the numbers?
I am calling on the Auditor General of The Bahamas to please have a
detailed forensic report done on behalf of the taxpayers of The Bahamas
and the cultural community. It is only right that we find out where all
of the $9, now $12 million has gone and if there
was any wrong doing committed. If so, some people need to go to jail.
This is not the time to be joking with the people’s funds. There are too
many vultures, crows, family, friends and lovers in our country that
think they can always find a way to justify
why they should have the people’s monies in their pockets, like we owe
them something.
All of you that sat down with Mr. Paul Major on radio and television
interviews and helped him to push this carnival idea, why don’t you now
help us to persuade him to hurry the accounting up?
My hands are clean and will always stay clean, that’s why I can talk to
“the powers that be” the way I do because they have nothing on me. Can
we all say that or have some of us compromised our integrity and morals
for our own selfish pursuits? I will stay
steadfast on calling you all to account, even if no one else will. That
is a lot of money that you and your cohorts were playing with and that
could have gone to furthering our cultural and sporting programs or
given to support the less fortunate in our midst.
They held this event; they say they attracted 90,000 souls with $9
million. Let’s stay with that number for now. That adds up to 10,000
people per $1 million, that doesn’t sound right?
We held an event on Arawak Cay, April 11, 2015, where with $70,000 –
$75,000 we attracted over 12,000 persons that night. It was a wonderful
show, all Bahamian entertainment, no complaints from the vendors. If we
got that kind of crowd with that amount of money,
where are the rest of the funds from the Junkanoo Carnival?
Something is rotten in Denmark and on the carnival grounds. I am not
saying you should have gotten what we got but why such a large disparity
or were we just better event planners or maybe it’s because we
understand the business of music and entertainment and
you and your crew don’t?
These questions need to be answered and someone has to be held to
account. No Mr. Prime Minister, it was not a success. I understand you
have the bully pulpit but that does not make you correct because you
said so. Junkanoo Carnival 2015 was a payment for appearance.
You got your party supporters and few carnival sympathizers’ out, so
what? What did the average Bahamian citizen get out of this? What did
the Bahamian entertainers get out of this?
I welcome further debate on this misguided event. Firstly, start by
making sure that Bahamians receive a larger share of the funds that
their country is handing out and again I hold Minister Danny Johnson and
the Prime Minister responsible for this ludicrous
idea of promoting Trinidad carnival in The Bahamas.
With Cuba and America’s relations mending, would it not be more sensible
that we focus on being more Bahamian? No Cuban, Trinidadian or American
can beat us being Bahamian; let us do us. Let us invest in us; our
culture. Let’s truly promote Junkanoo, Rake-N-Scrape
and Goombay. No one in the world can do it better than us just like we
can never beat Trinidad at their Soca music and their culture; that is
their thing. Why is this so hard for our leaders to understand?
Let’s learn to love us. In closing, some of you need to get over your
inferiority complexes. You are a Bahamian. You are blessed!
#Bahamianculture.
Kirkland H. Bodie
Activist / Entertainer
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