Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Copy­right Col­lec­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TTC­CO), As­ten Isaac, has re­spond­ed to re­cent de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and the re­quest by the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture for fresh nom­i­na­tions to the NCC Board.

The mat­ter, which has drawn na­tion­al at­ten­tion fol­low­ing a pub­lic state­ment by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) and a re­port­ed threat of le­gal ac­tion, cen­tres on the Min­istry’s di­rec­tive that all ma­jor cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions rep­re­sent­ed on the NCC Board—TU­CO, Pan Trin­ba­go, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA)—sub­mit new nom­i­nees for the re­con­sti­tu­tion of the Board.

Isaac ac­knowl­edged the con­cerns raised but high­light­ed the le­gal frame­work guid­ing the ap­point­ment process. He point­ed to Sec­tion 5(1)(a), (b), and (c) of the NCC Act, which grants the three or­gan­i­sa­tions the right to nom­i­nate rep­re­sen­ta­tives, while al­so not­ing the Min­is­ter’s oblig­a­tion to en­sure that the Board op­er­ates ef­fi­cient­ly and re­flects the needs of the evolv­ing Car­ni­val sec­tor.

Isaac ref­er­enced Sec­tion 5(1)(d) of the Act, which al­lows the Min­is­ter to ap­point oth­er board mem­bers at their dis­cre­tion, and Sec­tion 5(3), which em­pow­ers the Min­is­ter to make reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the nom­i­na­tion and ap­point­ment process, pro­vid­ed they align with the ob­jec­tives of the Act.

“The Min­is­ter’s di­rec­tive en­cour­ages or­gan­i­sa­tions to re­flect in­ter­nal­ly and iden­ti­fy in­di­vid­u­als who can bring re­newed en­er­gy and ideas to the NCC,” Isaac stat­ed.

He clar­i­fied that the re­quest for new nom­i­na­tions should not be in­ter­pret­ed as a dis­missal of for­mer rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but as a mea­sure to sup­port a more ef­fec­tive and re­spon­sive gov­er­nance struc­ture with­in the Com­mis­sion.

Isaac said the TTC­CO sup­ports the Min­istry’s ap­proach and re­it­er­at­ed the need for con­tin­ued en­gage­ment be­tween the Min­istry and all stake­hold­er or­gan­i­sa­tions. He said col­lab­o­ra­tion and di­a­logue are es­sen­tial to main­tain­ing a strong, rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and func­tion­al NCC.