The Steelband Champions prize distribution ceremony turned political as Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore pledged her support to Prime Minister Stuart Young, and Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts Randall Mitchell encouraged members to support the government that did much for the steelpan movement.

Speaking at the event at Radisson Hotel, Port of Spain, on April 15, Ramsey-Moore thanked Young, whose father, she said, paved the way for him as a “pan jumbie.”

She said when Richard Young was managing director of Scotiabank, he and Keith Simpson, Scotiabank’s former manager of retail and small business and former president of Pan Trinbago, ensured unsponsored bands received a grant ever year.