Wingrove Hicks-Williams the leader and manager of the popular Grand Masters Band, on Tuesday called for the firing of the Streets Activities Committee, a sub committee of the National Carnival Committee (NCC). He made the call on Freedom Fm’s Issues on Tuesday following the NCC’s decision to reverse its earlier official results for the Jouvert troupes which was originally judged on December 26, 2015.
Carnival concluded on January 2, 2016 and the results for the street activities were released on that day as follows, 1st Place – Xtreme Nation – 188 points, 2nd Place – Small Axe Band Shiggidy-Shack – 179 points and 3rd Place – Grand Masters Addix – 163.8 points. An upset Hicks-Williams whose troupe lost its third position in the revised results emphasised that what happened is incompetence. “I’ve never encountered anything like this…It’s the worst thing ever and the committee should be fired” he said.
Hicks-Williams a veteran musician for over fifty years, has played the trumpet with several popular bands on St. Kitts, including Ellie Matt and the G.I’s and the G.I Brass International before forming the Grand Master in the late 80’s. Shortly after the new results were made public, he said on Freedom Fm, “I have never seen such incompetence in all my life. I have never questioned the judges decision, not even when the rules on the road march competition were changed…I’ve never attended a meeting before last night (Monday Jan 11) to discuss those matters…I just asked them to send me the criteria…Win or lose I accept and move on.”
Williams said the entire Jouvert sub Committee was incapable and should all be fired. He stressed that he had never seen such incompetence in his life and that if they could not handle a simple matter such as judging and announcing the street activities results then they needed to go.
“They are the worst I have ever encountered ….I close my case”, Williams declared.
The NCC claim that the change in the positions, which saw a troupe that was originally omitted from the top three was due to one judge’s score for the Red Devils not calculated by the auditors, because “their particular theme for J’ouvert was Masquerade Devils, which was displayed on their paraphernalia. As Red Devils passed a specific judging station on J’ouvert morning, the judge at that particular point explained that he/she only saw the name “Masquerade Devils”. Consequently, he/she did not award any points to the Red Devils in the Table provided on his/her score sheet. Instead, on a blank space below, on the same score sheet, said judge awarded points, as per the criteria, to the Masquerade Devils as a safety precaution,” the press release stated.
“The Auditors then received the score sheets at the end of the judging process and tabulated the scores. Based on the fact that this specific judge did not assign points to Red Devils on his/her score sheet, the Auditors did not include a score for Red Devils for this single location.” Persons familiar with the workings of the street activities committees said the auditors should have known the amount of judges assigned and the total aggregate scores expected from the judges. Instead the matter was only investigated following queries by the losing troupe leader. The new results. “1st Place – Red Devils – 189.5 points, 2nd Place – Xtreme Nation – 188 points and 3rd Place – Small Axe Band Shiggidy-Shack – 179 points,” the NCC release said