Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) is deny­ing al­le­ga­tions made by vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Er­rol “Bal­ly” Bal­lan­tyne that mem­bers of its gen­er­al coun­cil paid them­selves $100,000 each in ex­change for not com­pet­ing in this year’s Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

In an un­dat­ed open let­ter that was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia plat­forms this week, Bal­lan­tyne al­leged that mem­bers of TU­CO’s lead­er­ship had made a back­door fi­nan­cial arrange­ment to side­line them­selves from the com­pe­ti­tion in ex­change for per­son­al gain.

“These are pub­lic funds we’re talk­ing about, and if you’re in charge of an or­gan­i­sa­tion that’s sup­posed to pro­tect the in­ter­ests of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, you can’t pay your­self off and then step aside. It is a be­tray­al of trust,” Bal­lan­tyne told Guardian Me­dia when con­tact­ed.

Bal­lan­tyne dou­bled down on his claims, say­ing, “What they have done is re­ward them­selves with tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey and shut out oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans by con­trol­ling the process be­hind the scenes.”

He con­tin­ued, “They don’t want to an­swer ques­tions, but I will ask them: Where is the mon­ey go­ing? What have you re­al­ly done for ca­lyp­so late­ly oth­er than take from it?”

Bal­lan­tyne in­sist­ed he was not at­tack­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion but speak­ing up on be­half of frus­trat­ed ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who, he said, feel si­lenced and side­lined.

“This isn’t just about one pay­ment. It’s a cul­ture of si­lence, and I’m done keep­ing qui­et.”

Bal­lan­tyne did not pro­vide doc­u­ment­ed ev­i­dence to sup­port his claims but in­sist­ed his in­for­ma­tion came from re­li­able sources with­in the ca­lyp­so com­mu­ni­ty.

“It’s not just hearsay. Peo­ple are afraid to speak out, but I will,” he added.

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, TU­CO pres­i­dent Ains­ley King is­sued a strong­ly word­ed press re­lease, cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly deny­ing the ac­cu­sa­tions and call­ing them base­less, defam­a­to­ry and dam­ag­ing to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its lead­er­ship.

“The gen­er­al coun­cil has not en­gaged in any such con­duct,” the re­lease stat­ed.

“These claims are ground­ed pure­ly in ru­mour and spec­u­la­tion and lack any fac­tu­al ba­sis.”

TU­CO ex­plained that there was an es­tab­lished pol­i­cy, pre­dat­ing the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive, where mem­bers were com­pen­sat­ed for their ex­ten­sive work dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son; how­ev­er, it said there was nev­er any arrange­ment re­sem­bling the one de­scribed by Bal­lan­tyne.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty,” said King, who al­so warned that TU­CO would con­sid­er le­gal ac­tion if the spread of the “false in­for­ma­tion” con­tin­ued.

Bal­lan­tyne, how­ev­er, is not back­ing down.

“If they say it’s not true, let them pub­lish the fig­ures. Let the pub­lic see how much was paid, to whom, and for what,” he said.

King cau­tioned that if the spread of mis­in­for­ma­tion con­tin­ued, the or­gan­i­sa­tion may pur­sue le­gal ac­tion.

“We re­mind all mem­bers and the gen­er­al pub­lic that the dis­sem­i­na­tion of un­found­ed and defam­a­to­ry in­for­ma­tion is not on­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble but al­so in­ju­ri­ous to the rep­u­ta­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its of­fi­cials,” the state­ment read.