Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A group of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and ca­lyp­so afi­ciona­dos are call­ing for an au­dit in­to the fi­nances of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) amid furore over sig­nif­i­cant pay­ments re­cent­ly made to se­nior ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Roger “Body­guard” Mo­hammed, who is rep­re­sent­ing the group, made the call in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Mo­hammed not­ed that on Sat­ur­day, he and the oth­er mem­bers of the group held a heat­ed meet­ing in Bel­mont to dis­cuss re­ports over the pay­ments.

He not­ed that while TU­CO pres­i­dent Ains­ley King had ini­tial­ly claimed that the doc­u­ment de­tail­ing the pur­port­ed pay­ments, which was shared on so­cial me­dia, was fake, he sub­se­quent­ly ad­mit­ted that it was ac­cu­rate ex­cept for the rea­son list­ed for the pay­ments.

The doc­u­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 5, 2024, de­tailed “re­im­burse­ments”, in­clud­ing $350,000 to King him­self, $100,000 each to the pres­i­dent, vice pres­i­dent, and gen­er­al sec­re­tary, $100,000 to the trea­sur­er, and $60,000 to the as­sis­tant trea­sur­er.

Mo­hammed point­ed out that King claimed that a por­tion of his pay­ment was for ex­pens­es he in­curred in ful­fill­ing his of­fi­cial du­ties, in­clud­ing rent for when he had to spend sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­ods in Trinidad away from his pri­vate home in To­ba­go.

“The pres­i­dent al­so men­tioned ex­pens­es re­lat­ed to the new of­fice, stat­ing that he used his per­son­al funds for cer­tain things con­nect­ed to this move,” Mo­hammed said.

Mo­hammed ques­tioned whether the doc­u­ment, which was par­tial­ly ad­mit­ted, was au­then­tic or fraud­u­lent.

“Who al­tered it? Who leaked it?” Has a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion been launched?” Mo­hammed asked.

He al­so ques­tioned whether TU­CO’s ex­ec­u­tive would apol­o­gise to mem­bers who were crit­i­cised for shar­ing the doc­u­ment be­fore it was con­firmed to be par­tial­ly ac­cu­rate.

“A mem­ber was per­son­al­ly ac­cused of mis­chief and bit­ter­ness and threat­ened with le­gal ac­tion,” he said.

“Now that the amounts and per­sons re­ceiv­ing have been con­firmed as ac­cu­rate, will the ex­ec­u­tive pub­licly re­tract those state­ments and is­sue an apol­o­gy?” he added.

Mo­hammed not­ed that he and his fel­low con­cerned ca­lyp­so­ni­ans raised is­sues with the pay­ments in the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy.

“Our sole fo­cus in the mat­ter at hand is to seek trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the pro­tec­tion of our or­gan­i­sa­tion’s in­tegri­ty and the re­spon­si­ble man­age­ment of our af­fairs in Ca­lyp­so,” Mo­hammed said.

“The mem­bers de­serve clar­i­ty and truth, not con­flict­ing state­ments, threats, and unan­swered ques­tions,” he added.

He al­so called for an emer­gency meet­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, as he not­ed that its last gen­er­al mem­ber­ship meet­ing was in No­vem­ber last year.

On Sun­day, King promised to hold a press con­fer­ence this week to ad­dress con­cerns over the pay­ments.