Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

An “unau­tho­rised” me­dia re­lease is said to be the source of pub­lic con­fu­sion over Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions, which prompt­ed the Prime Min­is­ter to quick­ly ad­dress the mat­ter, de­clar­ing “noth­ing is can­celled.”

Short­ly be­fore 1 pm yes­ter­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) post­ed on its Face­book page a me­dia re­lease pur­port­ed­ly from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices To­ba­go (OPM-CAST), ti­tled Can­cel­la­tion of Re­pub­lic Day Ac­tiv­i­ties.

That same me­dia re­lease was post­ed ear­li­er by the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness, and So­cial Pro­tec­tion in To­ba­go.

The re­lease stat­ed that the Re­pub­lic Day Route March, Re­cep­tion and Awards Func­tion, sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 24, had been can­celled.

It said, “The de­ci­sion comes in com­pli­ance with the Gov­ern­ment’s di­rec­tive un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While the out­come is deeply re­gret­table, it is nec­es­sary to pri­ori­tise na­tion­al safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.”

At the time, Guardian Me­dia was out­side Par­lia­ment in­ter­view­ing mem­bers as they made their way in­to the cham­ber.

Cou­va North MP and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John was asked to con­firm the au­then­tic­i­ty of the me­dia re­lease. How­ev­er, it ap­peared as if she was un­aware and seemed ir­ri­tat­ed by the ques­tion.

“You all must have can­celled it, I’m sure it’s Guardian Me­dia that can­celled it,” the min­is­ter said.

She added, “What kind of fool­ish­ness are you all talk­ing?”

When in­formed that it was state-owned TTT that post­ed the re­lease, the min­is­ter said, “Re­al­ly? You are sure with all this AI (ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence) thing go­ing on?”

She then walked off. John lat­er called to apol­o­gise for her re­sponse.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter ar­rived at the Par­lia­ment soon af­ter and Guardian Me­dia asked if Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions were called off.

From a dis­tance, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed, “No,” while shak­ing her head.

She then said, “Noth­ing is can­celled.”

And at the start of the sit­ting of the Low­er House, the Prime Min­is­ter made a state­ment in the cham­ber to un­der­score what she would have said out­side.

“There is some news cir­cu­lat­ing that the Re­pub­lic Day Awards func­tion has been can­celled. I have no knowl­edge of that. We met in Cab­i­net up to yes­ter­day. We are ful­ly com­mit­ted, and we will be pro­ceed­ing with the Re­pub­lic Day Awards func­tion,” she told the Par­lia­ment.

A me­dia re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter soon fol­lowed. It stat­ed that last week, the Prime Min­is­ter ap­proved fund­ing for To­ba­go’s Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions. The re­lease em­pha­sised that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter re­mains the sole au­tho­rised source for is­su­ing state­ments on na­tion­al mat­ters.

On Au­gust 15, Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the an­nu­al In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade and state-spon­sored fire­works show had been can­celled due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

The Prime Min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that she would at­tend the Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny on Re­pub­lic Day be­fore go­ing to the 80th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York.

Asked yes­ter­day where the mis­in­for­ma­tion orig­i­nat­ed, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who is al­so Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, would on­ly say, “I can con­firm that all State cel­e­bra­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go for Re­pub­lic Day will pro­ceed.”

All oth­er ques­tions were not an­swered.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said events or­gan­ised by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will go on as planned.

“So, we give spon­sor­ship, for ex­am­ple, to the re­gat­ta that hap­pens in Rox­bor­ough, that will con­tin­ue. There is a cul­tur­al show that hap­pens late in the evening in Rox­bor­ough, that will al­so con­tin­ue as per nor­mal. And you will have fire­works and so on, that will hap­pen per nor­mal in the Rox­bor­ough area,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said that if any pa­rade has to hap­pen, it will be sole­ly un­der the re­mit of the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

Au­gus­tine had no in­for­ma­tion on how the mis­in­for­ma­tion start­ed. “I am hear­ing that that press re­lease may have been unau­tho­rised, but again, that’s up to OPM-CAST. I am not so sure what tran­spired in terms of the full de­tails.”