Car­ni­val’s com­mer­cial en­gine is fac­ing a struc­tur­al reck­on­ing.  Af­ter 77 years in op­er­a­tion, Sama­roo’s is open­ly ques­tion­ing whether it can con­tin­ue be­yond 2027 un­less there is de­ci­sive pol­i­cy in­ter­ven­tion to re­bal­ance what its man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Steve Sama­roo, de­scribes as a lop­sided mar­ket­place tilt­ed to­wards im­port­ed, ready-made cos­tumes.“This was our worst year in the busi­ness be­cause our sales de­clined sig­nif­i­cant­ly for dif­fer­ent rea­sons,” Sama­roo said, list­ing the im­por­ta­tion of fin­ished cos­tumes from Chi­na, for­eign ex­change con­straints, and ris­ing clear­ance costs among the pri­ma­ry pres­sures.Sama­roo’s abil­i­ty to grow since COVID-19 has been sti­fled, by the larg­er, more re­source­ful bands im­port­ing com­plet­ed cos­tumes rather than sourc­ing fab­rics, wire, trims, and ac­ces­sories lo­cal­ly. That mod­el by­pass­es do­mes­tic sup­pli­ers and com­press­es mar­gins across the tra­di­tion­al val­ue chain.“The cos­tume prices make it very chal­leng­ing and raise the ques­tion of whether we should con­tin­ue as a sup­pli­er,” he said. “If you’re pro­vid­ing a cos­tume ready-made from Chi­na, you don’t need the lo­cal labour and raw ma­te­ri­als in­put in­to a cos­tume here.”The com­pa­ny once op­er­at­ed five lo­ca­tions, it is now down to two—its main branch at El So­cor­ro and a San Fer­nan­do out­let—af­ter clos­ing three since the pan­dem­ic. He main­tained that he is ful­ly aware of the land­ed prices paid for those im­port­ed cos­tumes and be­lieves the ex­ist­ing 20 per cent du­ty is in­suf­fi­cient. “The re­sult­ing 20 per cent du­ty is min­i­mal and should be at least 200 per cent,” he said, propos­ing a slid­ing scale tied to lo­cal con­tent. “So the ques­tion is what per­cent­age of lo­cal in­put should be in the cos­tumes? No lo­cal in­put, then 500 per cent du­ty.”For Sama­roo, the is­sue is not on­ly com­mer­cial but cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic. He frames Car­ni­val as an in­te­grat­ed ecosys­tem once pow­ered by de­sign­ers, crafts­men, wire ben­ders, dec­o­ra­tors, and seam­stress­es who col­lec­tive­ly gen­er­at­ed em­ploy­ment and ex­port­ed cre­ativ­i­ty. He points to lega­cy bands—such as Poi­son, Bar­barosa, Harts, Tri­ni Rev­ellers, Lega­cy/Leg­ends, D Mi­das, Mas­querde—and band­lead­ers like Raoul Garib, Wayne Berke­ley, Pe­ter Min­shall, Bri­an Mac Far­lane, Pe­ter Samuel, Neville Hinds, Owen Hinds, Jagges­sars, Kallicha­rans,  Zain­ool Mo­hammed as ar­chi­tects who helped put T&T on the world stage.“We saw a lot of cre­ativ­i­ty, which we rarely see now in the larg­er bands but on­ly in the Kings and Queens, in­di­vid­u­als, and the tra­di­tion­al mas,” he said.Tar­iffs, lo­cal con­tent and pol­i­cy di­rec­tionSama­roo is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate con­sul­ta­tion among sup­pli­ers, band lead­ers, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) and the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism to de­ter­mine the fu­ture ar­chi­tec­ture of the in­dus­try. In his view, Car­ni­val re­quires new con­di­tions to stim­u­late do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion be­fore the sup­ply base col­laps­es.

“Where is our Gov­ern­ment in all this?” he asked. “They need to re­vis­it Car­ni­val and start im­ple­ment­ing new con­di­tions to com­pete and stim­u­late the lo­cal in­dus­try be­fore we lose it all and just make Car­ni­val one big par­ty as it has be­come now.”

Among his pro­pos­als are high­er du­ties on ful­ly as­sem­bled im­port­ed cos­tumes, du­ty-free treat­ment for bona fide Car­ni­val ma­te­ri­als and a for­mal lo­cal con­tent frame­work that dif­fer­en­ti­ates tar­iffs based on the per­cent­age of do­mes­tic in­put. If a cos­tume is large­ly con­struct­ed abroad with neg­li­gi­ble lo­cal val­ue added, he be­lieves the du­ty should be puni­tive. If it is sub­stan­tial­ly pro­duced lo­cal­ly, it should be el­i­gi­ble for re­lief.He ar­gued that with­out such in­ter­ven­tion, Sama­roo’s may have to con­sid­er clos­ing its doors in 2027. The com­pa­ny is al­ready eval­u­at­ing con­sol­i­da­tion to re­duce over­heads. Be­tween 60 and 75 jobs could be at risk if fur­ther down­siz­ing oc­curs.