Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Zor­isha Hack­ett has been ap­point­ed tem­po­rary Sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion, in place of Tashia Bur­ris, while con­tin­u­ing to head the Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion. Hack­ett’s new role, how­ev­er, has drawn im­me­di­ate fire from her for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke.

The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary con­firmed that her ap­point­ment took ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 15. It comes just weeks be­fore the is­land’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val, one of the most im­por­tant events on To­ba­go’s cal­en­dar.

Speak­ing on a Face­book live video, Duke ques­tioned why the last sec­re­tary of tourism and cul­ture was un­avail­able and why Hack­ett was cho­sen to take charge of the di­vi­sion at such a crit­i­cal time.

“What is it that Tashia Bur­ris did? The last known sec­re­tary for tourism and cul­ture held the job. What did she do to in­voke the irk, re­sent­ment and the hatch­et from Far­ley Au­gus­tine? So much so that this morn­ing, the whole of To­ba­go and Trinidad has awok­en to the news that as from the 15th, mind you to­day’s 18th right, that from the 15th of this month, Zia has been act­ing as the sec­re­tary for both tourism and cul­ture wrapped up in one, in ad­di­tion to usu­al func­tions which is the sec­re­tary for ed­u­ca­tion,” he said.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia Bur­ris was on ap­proved va­ca­tion leave.

But Duke ar­gued that Hack­ett has not per­formed in her ed­u­ca­tion role and should not have been giv­en ex­tra re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for tourism, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Car­ni­val prepa­ra­tions al­ready un­der­way.

“Now I don’t think Zia is so bright, I don’t think she’s so hard work­ing, I don’t think she has de­liv­ered at all in her di­vi­sion, which is the sec­re­tary for ed­u­ca­tion pri­ma­ry, and now to be giv­en an im­por­tant func­tion as a sec­re­tary for tourism and tourism is fail­ing and cul­ture when Car­ni­val is about two three weeks away. I am more wor­ried and To­ba­go is wor­ried. What the hell is hap­pen­ing to fol­ly Au­gus­tine?” Duke asked.

He de­scribed Au­gus­tine’s man­age­ment of the As­sem­bly as reck­less and re­ac­tive.

“Does he think things through, or is he just mov­ing by knee-jerk re­ac­tion? Vaps and Vo­der­man, who serve as ad­vi­sor tell him to move, move, lick up, lick up,” he added.

The PDP leader be­lieves this move is a wider at­tack on the state of gov­er­nance in To­ba­go.

“To­ba­go, I’m warn­ing you all, we can­not con­tin­ue with that type of di­lap­i­dat­ed, that type of back­ward, that type of no-good gov­er­nance. The world is watch­ing and if we re­in­stall Far­ley, we’ll be looked at as per­sons who are not think­ing cor­rect­ly,” Duke said.

While Duke raised con­cerns, To­ba­go’s Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion wel­comed Hack­ett’s ap­point­ment, say­ing they looked for­ward to work­ing close­ly with her to en­sure the fes­ti­val’s suc­cess.

The Band Lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, in a press re­lease yes­ter­day, al­so said it was con­fi­dent in her abil­i­ty to guide prepa­ra­tions in the weeks ahead, adding the in­dus­try is ready to col­lab­o­rate ful­ly with the new sec­re­tary to de­liv­er a big­ger and more prof­itable Car­ni­val in 2025.