Pe­ter Ray Blood

De­spite an ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing last Sun­day at Scherzan­do pa­n­yard in Curepe, con­flict­ing opin­ions con­tin­ue in the up­per ech­e­lons of Pan Trin­ba­go. The meet­ing, held at the be­hest of Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, was sum­moned to dis­cuss claims made by two for­mer cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers-Kei­th Simp­son and Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore-that Di­az and the ex­ec­u­tive had tak­en uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions with­out the in­volve­ment of the en­tire cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive.

The two ques­tion­able is­sues were a pay­ment of over $420,000 to a con­sul­tant for the de­sign and lay­out of The Greens at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain for the 2012 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and the for­ma­tion of the Africa T&T Steel­pan De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd.

Simp­son and Ram­sey-Moore have been the two most vo­cal ob­jec­tors to the way these two projects were im­ple­ment­ed and both ac­cused their for­mer cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive col­leagues of "lack of trans­paren­cy and high-hand­ed­ness." Speak­ing to T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said: "I would say that Sun­day's meet­ing was a suc­cess, as we've cleared the air on two burn­ing is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly in the area of trans­paren­cy.

"The oth­er area of con­cern was the es­tab­lish­ment of the Africa T&T Steel­pan De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd, but this project was to­tal­ly ac­cept­ed by the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship of Pan Trin­ba­go. "The hard­est fo­rum of Pan Trin­ba­go is its wider mem­ber­ship, so we took these con­cerns to the meet­ing, ven­ti­lat­ed them to the gen­er­al body, and our mem­bers were so re­cep­tive that now a num­ber of steel­bands are ask­ing to be a part of this Africa ini­tia­tive."

How­ev­er, Ram­sey-Moore said: "I agree with Mr Di­az that the meet­ing was a re­sound­ing suc­cess, but, for not on­ly Mr Di­az and his ex­ec­u­tive, but al­so for Kei­th (Simp­son) and my­self. "As far as I am con­cerned, our ques­tions haven't re­al­ly been an­swered sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly. At­tempts were made to not al­low me to speak on Sun­day but mem­ber­ship of Pan Trin­ba­go in at­ten­dance in­sist­ed and told the ex­ec­u­tive that I must be al­lowed to speak. I told them my rea­sons why I re­signed as the meet­ing lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly.

"The de­ci­sions made by the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive con­cern­ing the two main is­sues were nev­er an ex­ec­u­tive de­ci­sion and to­day we are now get­ting ex­pla­na­tions af­ter the fact. "Trans­paren­cy means dis­cussing is­sues first be­fore im­ple­men­ta­tion and does not mean ex­plain­ing what you have done af­ter you have done it."

Pan Trin­ba­go's elec­tions for a new cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee are due in Oc­to­ber and the Di­az ad­min­is­tra­tion is ex­pect­ed to face stern op­po­si­tion. "I don't see any in­sur­mount­able ob­sta­cles for the elec­tions," said Di­az. "I wouldn't know who the op­po­si­tion is go­ing to be in the elec­tions un­til about a month be­fore the elec­tions, but I do know that there are peo­ple who are in­ter­est­ed in hold­ing the post of pres­i­dent.

"I hope that I will be elect­ed for a sec­ond term, but who­ev­er is elect­ed I am al­ways will­ing to work with any­one in the in­ter­est of the steel­band move­ment, and pan in gen­er­al. "This in­cum­bent ex­ec­u­tive has em­barked on a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant ini­tia­tives in the in­ter­est of the steel­band move­ment.

We have a num­ber of meet­ings planned with the new Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, who seems to be very re­cep­tive to our ideas, and has in­di­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to work with Pan Trin­ba­go in the fu­ture, and we tru­ly ap­pre­ci­ate that."

Di­az said a meet­ing is planned next week with the min­is­ter. Ram­sey-Moore said: "The mem­ber­ship of Pan Trin­ba­go needs to be very care­ful with the peo­ple it elects to of­fice be­cause the con­sti­tu­tion needs to be up­held at all times, es­pe­cial­ly by the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive that is placed in of­fice.

"The Pan Trin­ba­go con­sti­tu­tion clear­ly states, in Part B, Ar­ti­cle Sev­en, 'The cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, with the ap­proval of the gen­er­al body, shall have the au­thor­i­ty to in­vest the monies of the as­so­ci­a­tion in such man­ner as it con­sid­ers to be in the best in­ter­est of the as­so­ci­a­tion as a whole.'"