Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The board of Laven­tille Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra has moved to for­mal­ly dis­tance the or­gan­i­sa­tion from pub­lic state­ments made by board mem­ber, Sen­a­tor David Nakhid, trig­ger­ing a pub­lic dis­pute that has now es­ca­lat­ed to le­gal ac­tion.

Board chair­man Oronde Lu­mum­ba con­firmed yes­ter­day that the or­gan­i­sa­tion took the de­ci­sion, af­ter what he de­scribed as re­peat­ed unau­tho­rised pub­lic com­ments by Nakhid ref­er­enc­ing his po­lit­i­cal back­ground and in­clud­ing at­tacks on Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lu­mum­ba said be­cause Nakhid is a sit­ting board mem­ber and ref­er­enced Des­per­a­does by name, mem­bers of the pub­lic had in­cor­rect­ly as­so­ci­at­ed his state­ments with the or­ches­tra.

Ram­sey-Moore and Nakhid have been en­gaged in a pub­lic spat on so­cial me­dia in re­cent days, dur­ing which time Nakhid ac­cused the Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent of cor­rup­tion.
Lu­mum­ba said the board con­sid­ered the com­ments to be in­con­sis­tent with the band’s ethos.

“Those state­ments do not rep­re­sent the po­si­tion of the board and are not in keep­ing with the tem­po, ide­ol­o­gy, phi­los­o­phy or di­rec­tion of Laven­tille Des­per­a­does,” he said.

As a re­sult, he said the board re­solved to for­mal­ly dis­tance the or­gan­i­sa­tion from Nakhid’s re­marks.

Lu­mum­ba al­so re­vealed that fol­low­ing a board meet­ing ear­li­er this week, a unan­i­mous de­ci­sion was tak­en to for­mal­ly re­quest Nakhid’s res­ig­na­tion.
He said that should Nakhid refuse, the board would be guid­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion in de­ter­min­ing its next steps, while not­ing that the re­ac­tion of play­ers and stake­hold­ers in Laven­tille could not be pre­dict­ed.

The steel­band ex­ec­u­tive is ex­pect­ed to host a me­dia con­fer­ence to­mor­row.

Mean­while, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore said she was not for­mal­ly aware of Des­per­a­does’ de­ci­sion at the time and not­ed that any of­fi­cial re­sponse would de­pend on re­ceiv­ing writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the band.
She de­scribed re­cent pub­lic at­tacks on her of­fice as dis­ap­point­ing, point­ing to Pan Trin­ba­go’s re­cent fi­nan­cial and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al per­for­mance.

Ram­sey-Moore said the or­gan­i­sa­tion has pro­duced clean au­dits for the past three to four years, re­port­ed a $6 mil­lion sur­plus at its last An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in Oc­to­ber, and suc­cess­ful­ly ex­e­cut­ed three Panora­ma fi­nals in 2026 us­ing its own re­serves.

She fur­ther em­pha­sised that Pan Trin­ba­go does not re­ceive reg­u­lar gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions and on­ly re­ceives fund­ing for spe­cif­ic events. She added that the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­mains in part­ner­ship with the State and ex­pects out­stand­ing re­im­burse­ments to be ho­n­oured.

Ac­cus­ing Nakhid of at­tempt­ing to cre­ate con­fu­sion, Ram­sey-Moore said she would not en­gage him pub­licly. She wel­comed any ac­tion tak­en by Des­per­a­does to clar­i­fy that his views do not rep­re­sent the band.

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, Nakhid is­sued a strong­ly word­ed state­ment re­ject­ing the board’s po­si­tion and in­sist­ing that his com­ments were made in a per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty and not as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the steel or­ches­tra.

He ac­cused the board of “show­ing its po­lit­i­cal pet­ti­coat,” ar­gu­ing that he was not act­ing as a del­e­gate of the board when the state­ments were made and that his views were in­de­pen­dent of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Nakhid fur­ther con­tend­ed that he was elect­ed by the mem­bers of Laven­tille Des­per­a­does and not ap­point­ed by the board, and ques­tioned the board’s au­thor­i­ty to dis­ci­pline him on that ba­sis.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the use of funds al­lo­cat­ed to the band, al­leg­ing that monies in­tend­ed specif­i­cal­ly for the pay­ment of band mem­bers were used for pur­pos­es oth­er than those stip­u­lat­ed, and called on the board to ac­count for those funds.

In his state­ment, Nakhid ac­cused the board of act­ing un­der the in­flu­ence of Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Ram­sey-Moore and the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, and sug­gest­ed that the board con­sid­er a mass res­ig­na­tion to al­low for new lead­er­ship.

The dis­pute has since tak­en a le­gal turn.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 20, ad­dressed to the Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra board of di­rec­tors, at­tor­ney-at-law Kristy Mo­han, who said she acts with coun­sel Kiel Tak­lals­ingh on be­half of Nakhid, ob­ject­ed to a sum­mons to a board meet­ing is­sued with less than 24 hours’ no­tice.

The let­ter stat­ed that Nakhid was un­able to at­tend and crit­i­cised the no­tice pe­ri­od as “whol­ly un­sat­is­fac­to­ry,” par­tic­u­lar­ly in cir­cum­stances where puni­tive ac­tion ap­peared to be con­tem­plat­ed with­out par­tic­u­lars be­ing pro­vid­ed.

The at­tor­ney fur­ther ar­gued that the board had al­ready char­ac­terised Nakhid’s state­ments as a “pub­lic out­burst,” sug­gest­ing that any meet­ing con­vened could be taint­ed by ac­tu­al or ap­par­ent bias. The let­ter warned that should any prej­u­di­cial de­ci­sion be tak­en against Nakhid in his ab­sence, le­gal pro­ceed­ings will be in­sti­tut­ed against board mem­bers.

Nakhid has in­di­cat­ed that fur­ther cor­re­spon­dence from his le­gal team is ex­pect­ed as the mat­ter un­folds.