The Kashif and Shanghai (K&S) organisation will not be staging the Linden town week this year after a dispute with the council over the payment of a $2 million fee but the council says it is still moving ahead with plans for the April event.
At a press conference held at the Water Chris Hotel on Friday, Kashif Muhammed confirmed that K&S along with the Linden Fund USA (LFU) would not be staging the Linden town day. The council has since said that LFU will still be participating in the town day. Muhammed stated that a recent letter from the Mayor and Town Council (M&TC) said that it had “closed this chapter of our relationship”. The letter from the M&TC stated, Muhammed said, that the decision was based on the K&S unwillingness to pay the MTC a fee of $2 million in exchange for managing the event this year. He stated that the K&S/LFU team offered to pay the council a fee of 25% of the net profits to a maximum of $1 million, the same as was paid last year. He added that the proposal also called for the 25% of the LFU portion plus a percentage of the K&S share to be invested back into the community through various critically needed projects. The organisation feels the move by the M&TC to double the fee is unreasonable. Muhammed said that for the past three months the organization has been negotiating with the Mayor and Town Council of Linden to manage the town week.
The decision to end the relationship, Muhammed said, was painful because of the negative impact it will have on the Linden community. He contended that when the event was managed by the council prior to 2006 the profit was much smaller than the $1M being offered and the MTC had to clean up as well which was an added responsibility. Muhammed stated that apart from the levy to the council last year K&S also had to pay $1.6 million to clean up venues after each event and did not ask the council to help. K&S also had other costs such as security and payment to artistes. The event also included educational programmes that were part of the town week proposal for this year.
Muhammed claimed too that after the Town Week last year tourism was boosted. He said Lindeners from abroad came and spent a minimum of US$700 in the town and from the reports his team got the visitors along with the business community were satisfied. He said that from the responses he is getting persons are reluctant to come for the Town Day because they feel it may not be like last year.
He added that K&S cannot afford the $2 million the council is asking for. He said they are at a stalemate but he wishes to assure the Linden community that they will remain loyal Linden citizens. He said also that K&S was not willing to join with any other organisation other than the Linden Fund USA.
Not pulled out
When Stabroek News contacted the chairman of the Interim Management Com-mittee (IMC) of the Linden M&TC, Orrin Gordon, he said Linden Fund USA has not pulled out. He said he spoke to the President of the Fund Dr Vincent Adams and was told that the LFU was still mobilizing to come for town week. He added that Dr Adams was expected in the country on January 17. He stated too that as far as he knew a large number of Lindeners abroad will be coming for the event which is usually held in the last week of April.
Speaking on the reason for the falling out between the M&TC and the K&S organisation, Gordon said they had started to put arrangements in place to organize the event since August. The council had indicated that it was canvassing the public for proposals, he said, and the K&S organisation was not happy with that and wrote the council a letter to this effect.
He stated that the council’s position was that it had to look after the public’s interest and eventually it went ahead with a notice and got a small amount of proposals from persons in the community. The major proposal came from K&S, but the council was not satisfied. Gordon stated the council needed more information from the K&S organisation and it asked K&S to come up with a proposal or budget. He said K&S responded that it could not give out that information publicly. And Gordon said the council told K&S it couldn’t accept just the lump sum – a maximum of $1 million – which was being offered as this was not reasonable especially in relation to the 25% of the net profit.
The council then wrote to K&S saying that it was requesting a fee of $2 million because K&S could not come up with a figure. Gordon revealed that K&S sent back a terse response that it was not going to negotiate what it had already proposed and the council replied to K&S that it was sticking with its position.
Gordon said the council did not make the issue public but had left the door open for discussion but the K&S team went out on Boxing Day night and made a public announcement and the next day the council responded on the television.
Gordon noted that last year when the K&S organisation held the Linden town week for the first time it produced the calendar of events without contacting the council and the council had a number of issues with this. One of which was that the event was only to be held for a week but continued for ten days and K&S used the council’s facility without its knowledge. This year the event will run for a week. He said the council was standing firm and will not allow what took place last year to happen again since it cannot just cater for one segment of the community.
The Linden town day activity started in 1995.
