The Sunday Mail
THIS year’s Harare International Carnival, if held in September as planned, will be served without the The Miss Carnival cherry. Traditionally, the carnival is led by the Carnival Queen.The Miss Carnival pageant was recently re-branded Miss Tourism Zimbabwe, and is scheduled for November, as announced by the Barbara Mzembi-led organisers
Early this month, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) announced that the annual event would be held from September 14 to 17 this year, which will be months prior the Miss Tourism pageant.
ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke declared in June during the official launch of the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe that the winner of the pageant would lead the Harare International Carnival.
But indications are that this is not likely to happen, at least during this year’s carnival.
“We are still talking to the organisers of Miss Tourism Zimbabwe. It’s no use having our own Miss Carnival when the Tourism Queen can lead the event. We accepted the proposal of re-branding Miss Carnival to Miss Tourism and would want to have the jamboree before the Miss Tourism pageant. In that case we might not have a queen to lead the carnival,” revealed Kaseke in an interview with The Sunday Mail Leisure last week.
Stakeholders are of the opinion that there are issues that need to be ironed out between ZTA and the new leadership of the newly-branded Miss Tourism, which is led by Babra Mzembi, wife to the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi.
They are arguing that if the carnival goes ahead without a queen, it will appear like a snub of the Miss Tourism pageant.
Further, Kaseke told this publication that the September dates are unlikely going to be adhered to due to a number of factors, with inadequate funding chief amongst them.
“The carnival is definitely on but what I cannot assure you at the moment are dates. We had planned it to be from September 14 to 17 but I don’t know if the dates will still remain mid-September. Maybe we will push them to slightly later than September,” said Kaseke.
“Please note that we also wanted to postpone the Sanganai/Hlanganani because the Government did not have money to finance the event and we fully appreciate the challenges they are facing,” he said.
According to the ZTA strongman, the HIC is the biggest tourist pulling event in the country and each edition requires a minimum of US$450 000 to be a success.
After pumping this much, however, the ZTA has been getting far much less from the carnival, resulting in huge arrears to service providers.
“We need US$450 000 for the carnival to be a success. However, the figure is still inadequate considering some of the incalculable costs involved in organising this event. The money is used to host some the invited guests and pay service providers. Last year, the carnival generated about US$21 million in hotel bookings and other businesses from the US$150 000 that had been availed by the Government,” he said.
Below, ZTA chief executive Kaseke responds to more questions on the carnival:
Q: What is the position with regards to the hosting of the carnival this year?
A: There is a lot of speculation that there will be no carnival this year but I know for a fact, the carnival will be held. Last year, we were promised a certain amount of money from the Ministry (Tourism and Hospitality) but we did not get it. We understand that Government is financially constrained but that does not mean we will abandon projects that we have already started. We can’t stop in the fourth year, it’s not good for the organisation. Which country is not doing a carnival? Every year, Zambia is doing a carnival, South Africa has a lot of carnivals, the same with Seychelles, etc. Why then should we not have ours? The purpose of this carnival is to promote social cohesion, to celebrate our diversity, we want people to be happy. This is an opportunity for Zimbabweans to relax and enjoy.
Q: May you please clarify on the dates of the carnival?
A: Discussions with the Ministry of Finance (and Economic Development) are still going on. We need to know when they will finance the carnival. Right now, we still owe the service providers from the last edition. They need to be paid before we engage them for fresh business. We cannot abandon them for new service providers because we owe them. We might compromise and have the carnival a bit later. Some people have applied for our license to do carnivals in Kariba, Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru so we can compromise for them. The Harare International Carnival should be done after the regional carnivals.
Q: Every year, you are always looking for funding from Government, are the levies that you collect not enough to finance some of these initiatives?
A: The carnival brings huge economic benefits but the ZTA does not get a single cent from it. The levies that we collect are not even enough to pay our salaries. In fact, all the levies that we collect are not enough to pay a year’s salary of a single person who is said to be receiving a ‘hefty salary’ in the authority.
For instance, I’m the least paid tourism chief executive if you are to compare me with my counterparts in the region. South Africa, which is the benchmark of every other tourism board in the region pays their chief executive between US$35 000 and US$40 000 in basic salary per month. I get US$3 700, a salary equivalent to that of an assistant accountant in the tourism board of South Africa. Other tourism boards get grants from Government for their salaries.
The levies are a factor of arrivals, if we don’t receive tourists, there is no levy to talk about. The levies range around US$6 million per year. As ZTA, we use that money for marketing purposes, we go to shows. Leading ZTA is like being given a car without a steering wheel and having to drive it, that’s what l have to do.
Q: Are the controversial Samba girls going to be part of this year’s edition of the jamboree?
A: Who says there are controversial? (smiles). The general public loves those Brazilians. If anything, last year women with kids on their back constituted the biggest number of people who came to see them in action. We will continue bringing them in and will not stop for whatever reason.
This year, we are also bringing in Cubans. We have been to Cuba on UNWTO business and we were pleased with what they are doing. Cuba is to some extent better than Brazil in terms of carnivals so they are a good benchmark.
Q: Do you think the 2016 edition of the event will be better than the previous years?
A: The people who came for our carnival last year surprised us. It was like a sea of people but we don’t think that number can be achieved in the near future, we can’t even comprehend what happened. The 2015 carnival is one of the best so far. If we match those figures we will be happy but I doubt that can be repeated. It was just too great.
