‘Dancehall Defender’ Damion Crawford Criticizes PM Andrew Holness For Unfulfilled Relief Promises To Entertainment Sector
Weeks after Dancehall artists jeered Prime Minister Andrew Holness after he promised cash allocations to “entertainers” for COVID-19 lockdown relief, Opposition Senator Damion Crawford, says the leader seems to have only “dangled a carrot” to get the entertainers to stop saying bad things about him, as his assurances of a bailout still remain unfulfilled.
Speaking during an interview with veteran entertainment journalist Winford Williams, during Saturday night’s edition of Onstage, the self-proclaimed Dancehall Defender said neither he nor his colleagues has heard anything further from Holness since he made the promise in the House of Parliament more than two weeks ago.
Prior to Holness’ assurances, music selectors and other members of the Dancehall fraternity had been berating him mercilessly about his protracted lockdown of the sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, according to Crawford, the Prime Minister has produced “no logical methodology” as to how his bailout plans will even be executed.
“None of us is privy (to Holness’ plans) because nothing has been put forward. It is just a statement and I believe, ‘engined’ by the arguments that were between the Prime Minister and the practitioners within entertainment. And so that discomfort caused for the Prime Minister to offer a carrot to the entertainment industry,” Crawford said.
The former Peoples National Party Youth Organization (PNPYO) president said that since the Holness administration were the ones who imposed the shutdown of the entertainment sector, then they should at least provide minimal compensation to stakeholders to ensure they can make ends meet.
“The entertainment industry has been closed for over a year; totally closed. There is no other industry that has experienced that negative – and closed by law, not by demand… The entertainment industry has been closed by a law. The Government says it should not be opened,” Crawford stated.
“And so, therefore the reason for its sufferation is based on a directive from Government, not a demand from clients. When an industry is asked to take a hit for a nation, in this case the entertainment industry, because of people interaction and crowds, then there is naturally a reasonable assumption that there will be some contribution for that sacrifice that that industry has made,” the University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer argued.
Crawford also called for the Government to immediately implement a registration system for all entertainment industry stakeholders, request a two year moratorium from banks for homeowners, make depreciation contributions to owners of entertainment equipment and provide a $4000 per month grant to smaller players to “at least guarantee them light and water, so that they can live in dignity”.
“At this point, we have not seen any legitimate and material relief. I heard they said 40 million was given at some point in time, for the entertainment industry – the entire industry and not just entertainment, but the ecosystem that supports entertainment. And I am suggesting that there must be great consideration firstly for those who own assets whether it be a sound system or a venue or lighting or a studio, those assets need to be subsidized for depreciation overtime,” Crawford argued.
“So a man who has a sound system that cost five million dollars, in five years he must be able to renew his system. So if he is incapable to earn for a full year, then that one million dollar in depreciation is going to be a sum cost for him and by extension put him out of business,” he explained.
Added Crawford: “Those who are most ambitious and took out mortgages for homes and stuff like that, they are also now not earning for the entire year and I think the government should speak with the banks to extend that mortgage like a moratorium on payment for persons within the industry.”
Crawford said it was imperative that the government puts a tiered registration system in place first, and argued that the fact that this was not done after more than a year, raises questions about Holness’ seriousness and level of respect for the sector.
“It was the first industry to be closed. So the fact that that has not been done, suggests that entertainment was no perceived to be priority. In fact, the Minister of Finance spoke to taxes and other groups, but he did not speak to entertainment in his presentation. And one of the realities is that entertainment has never been embraced by government in this country,” he argued.
Arguing that if a registration system is not put in place many deserving persons could be excluded, Crawford said this would “be a good excuse for a government to say, oh we don’t know who you are and we don’t have your information”.
“How we are going to facilitate the girls who we used to be at the bar? They are not known entertainers, but they are hired to, in many cases informal organizations. How do you get that information? All of that needs to be done before the money (is granted). So we have not seen that happening,” the Kingston College old boy said.