Joshua Seemu­n­gal

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Group of Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tions Lim­it­ed (TTG­PA) has de­nied claims that it evict­ed the Wood­brook Play­boyz steel­band from its for­mer home on Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, Wood­brook.

Rather, the TTG­PA said on Thurs­day that it en­gaged in pri­vate dis­cus­sions with the steel­band and made pro­pos­als to Wood­brook Play­boyz to ex­tend its stay at its for­mer lo­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, it said that the pro­pos­als were not ac­cept­ed, so it was mu­tu­al­ly agreed be­tween the par­ties that the band would re­lo­cate.

The band is now lo­cat­ed tem­porar­i­ly at the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen com­pound at Mu­cu­rapo Road.

The TTG­PA has leased #6 Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, where the band was pre­vi­ous­ly housed, since the 1990s from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

In a re­lease, the TTG­PA said an in­di­vid­ual had been oc­cu­py­ing the par­cel of land il­le­gal­ly for a num­ber of years and the il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of the land put the TTG­PA in a po­si­tion where it could breach its lease.

The TTG­PA said it was ready to move for­ward and bring the mat­ter to a close.

It added that it had plans to de­vel­op the area for its pro­fes­sion­al mem­bers.

On Tues­day, mem­bers of Wood­brook Play­boyz, who were mov­ing equip­ment from the Wood­brook site, claimed that the band was evict­ed by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

Sug­gest­ing there was a mis­un­der­stand­ing of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the me­dia, the band’s sec­re­tary Leroy Grant ad­mit­ted there was an agree­ment with the TTG­PA to leave the prop­er­ty and move else­where.

On Wednes­day, Grant had told Guardian Me­dia, “Well, the emo­tions…you know, in the in­dus­try as a steel band since 1998, kin­da suc­cess­ful and low and be­hold, in 2022, we are giv­en the no­tice to move from a lo­ca­tion, where we have been very com­fort­able, not dis­turb­ing any neigh­bours.”

Grant said he tried every­thing to keep the lo­ca­tion and met with Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the ex­ec­u­tive of Pan Trin­ba­go to see if they could stay at the venue.Oth­er band mem­bers clear­ing the prop­er­ty on Wednes­day had claimed they were evict­ed by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Grant said the per­son who al­lowed the band to stay at the Wood­brook lo­ca­tion was il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing the prop­er­ty. The TTG­PA had been try­ing to re­move that per­son from the premis­es for some time.

Wood­brook Play­boyz won the Panora­ma Fi­nals Sin­gle Pans com­pe­ti­tion in 2003, earn­ing 275 points for their ren­di­tion of Mu­sic in We Blood by Len Boogsie Sharpe/Anslem Dou­glas.