If elected, Aquil Arrindell hopes to renegotiate a larger space comparable to the one Pan Trinbago had in Trincity for its headquarters.
The San Fernando pan leader is challenging Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore in the October 6 pan elections.
Arrindell is the leader of San City Steel Symphony based at Carib Street, San Fernando.
In August, government announced that Pan Trinbago’s new headquarters would be constructed at the old general post office, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, at an estimated cost of $120 million.
This came after the Prime Minister announced in May that land previously allocated in Trincity for the headquarters would now be used to construct a cricket academy.
An article in August said the Wrightson Road headquarters would be a six-storey, mix-use building with Pan Trinbago's office space, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Tourism Trinidad Ltd, the National Carnival Commission (NCC), a theatre/auditorium with seating for 300, a pan museum and interpretive centre, conference and meeting rooms, rooftop entertainment area, gift shop, cafeteria and parking facilities.
Arrindell has held positions on the pan executive before, under the Keith Diaz administration, and ran for the position of vice president in the last election. This is, however, his first time running for the presidency.
The Arrindell-led slate is called Pan Moving Forward.
In a phone interview on October 1, he said, “We definitely would not want to have any confrontation with the government.
“Whatever government of the day it is, we, as Pan Trinbago, are supposed to work alongside them for the betterment of Trinidad and Tobago and the instrument.
“We would ask the government to renegotiate because that space they gave away was a place we had planned to bring an economic benefit to the country. And we would have to convince the government that we need an equal amount of space somewhere to realise this vision of having a Carnival village.”
[caption id="attachment_939068" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore. - Photo by Angelo Marcelle[/caption]
He added that his team has a number of plans for the organisation, including a revamped International Panorama.
He also spoke of issues with the current pan administration and work done for the pan community.
He said he decided to run for the presidency after being asked by members to do so.
His first steps in preparing for the campaign was to do a critical assessment of the fraternity, and this meant going from band to band and asking what is needed.
“Whilst visiting bands, I would have realised some of them are in conditions that we can’t wait for an election to fix.
“A group of us would have gotten together and started fixing things in the panyards because we want them to keep functioning,” he said. His campaign began during the pandemic and included a national hamper drive for pannists.
“Every band would have received between six-ten hampers,” he said.
Another project undertaken during hi
