Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe has denied that Government forced CEO of the Tourism Development Company (TDC) Keith Chin to resign. Chin tendered his resignation from the State agency on July 1 after two years on the job. The action surprised many at the TDC and across the tourism sector who said he was the most stable senior management official at the State agency and had helped to stabilise the organisation which was underfunded and under staffed.
Warren Solomon, general manager for marketing at the TDC, has been appointed to act in the position.
There had been claims that the resignation was linked to statements made by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, at a political meeting in St Joseph when he said two State agencies–the Tourism Development Company (TDC) and the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB)–spent $734,000 of taxpayers' money on a radio station to defame him.
Rowley said he heard comments being made about him on State-owned Talk City 91.1 FM's Ground Report programme, which he described as "most vulgar, outrageous and filthy."
Talk City is owned and operated by State-owned Caribbean New Media Group. In May, June and July of 2013, Rowley said the radio station received payments of $86,000, $100,000 and $86,000 respectively. For the periods September, October and December 2014, the station collected $45,000, $40,000 and $30,000. By April of 2015, Rowley said a total of "$734,000 was paid" to the Ground Report.
But Cudjoe refuted suggestions that the two incidents were linked.
"No! Not to my knowledge at all!" she told the T&T Guardian.
"The CEO would have submitted his resignation and I believe he is moving onto greener pastures. In his letter, he did not say I am resigning for x, y, and z, but he has decided to resign, so that's the information I have received. I don't think it has anything to do with a fall-out," the minister said.
Cudjoe insisted that things were running smoothly at the TDC.
"Of course, there are the challenges because we are operating in a time of less resource, so you have to look at your way of operation because if the rest of the country is operating on a budget then obviously we have to be on a budget, too. So, some of the things that we could have indulged in or explored before, we can't right now.
"For instance overseas travel and some of the spending, we have to look at that. The strategy that we used before obviously has to be different now. I think that the workers at the TDC are doing their best with the resources that they have on hand."