ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters feels that Trinidad’s na­tion­al Car­ni­val and To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val should move to­wards sup­port­ing each oth­er in­stead of com­pet­ing.

Pe­ters yes­ter­day said To­ba­go should fo­cus on strength­en­ing its Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val prod­uct and po­si­tion it­self as a cool-down des­ti­na­tion af­ter the Trinidad Car­ni­val sea­son.

“It can have sep­a­rate things go­ing on if we do them in tan­dem and un­der­stand what it’s all about. It makes no sense forc­ing a Car­ni­val in To­ba­go,” he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Pe­ters stressed that To­ba­go should of­fer a va­ri­ety of ac­tiv­i­ties like beach par­ties and re­lax­ation af­ter the na­tion­al Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties ear­li­er in the year. He be­lieves this would en­cour­age tourists to stay longer by vis­it­ing To­ba­go af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Trinidad’s Car­ni­val.

“To­ba­go has all that it takes to have the great­est cool down af­ter Car­ni­val and for the build-up of the Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val,” Pe­ters sug­gest­ed, as he called for a part­ner­ship to strength­en both Car­ni­val events in Feb­ru­ary and Oc­to­ber, fo­cus­ing on dif­fer­ent flavours for To­ba­go’s of­fer­ings.

Two of To­ba­go’s largest mas and J’Ou­vert bands, Fog An­gels and Icon­ic Mas, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that they will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in next month’s na­tion­al Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties. In­stead, they are fo­cus­ing on ac­tiv­i­ties for Oc­to­ber’s cel­e­bra­tion in To­ba­go.

Mean­while, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Sec­re­tary of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion, Tashia Bur­ris, re­as­sured the pub­lic that To­ba­go will par­tic­i­pate in the up­com­ing Car­ni­val sea­son.

Speak­ing at her Scar­bor­ough of­fice, Bur­ris, who was on sick leave af­ter faint­ing on du­ty last week, ad­dressed con­cerns about the is­land’s in­volve­ment. She said the plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties in Feb­ru­ary are in the fi­nal stages.

“They’re still at the place where they are ham­mer­ing out what the lev­el of sup­port is go­ing to be, so I don’t want to yet make a com­ment on what is go­ing to be hap­pen­ing for Feb­ru­ary be­cause if you will re­mem­ber very clear­ly last year, the Chief Sec­re­tary made a very com­pre­hen­sive state­ment as to the di­rec­tion that we we’re look­ing at in terms of how we treat with very Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val,” she said.

While spe­cif­ic de­tails are yet to be an­nounced, Bur­ris hint­ed at ac­tiv­i­ties such as the medi­um band fi­nals and the in­ter-de­part­ment event re­turn­ing, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­tro­duc­ing new ac­tiv­i­ties as well.

As Bur­ris spoke to the me­dia, THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris was in the process of de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s de­part­ment in Port-of-Spain, call­ing for an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds dur­ing the is­land’s fes­ti­vals over the past year.

Mor­ris claimed that $2 mil­lion was un­ac­count­ed for in the $9 mil­lion bud­get in 2022. He al­so de­liv­ered let­ters to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and the THA’s chief ad­min­is­tra­tor, re­quest­ing an ur­gent au­dit.

In re­sponse to Mor­ris’ claim, Bur­ris said he got his fig­ures all wrong.

“Well, I don’t know where he gets his math from be­cause we sub­mit­ted the in­for­ma­tion via writ­ten re­sponse to the House. And I will nev­er say that the pub­lic ser­vants who are re­spon­si­ble for prepar­ing those state­ments will fal­si­fy those doc­u­ments,” she added.

Bur­ris said forex chal­lenges had af­fect­ed time­ly pay­ments to des­ti­na­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives. She ac­knowl­edged the dif­fi­cul­ties faced but high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cant growth of the UK des­ti­na­tion since the pan­dem­ic.

She said busi­ness to To­ba­go sur­passed 2019 lev­els, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly an eight per cent in­crease in 2021 com­pared to 2019.
Al­so, she said there was a 55 per cent in­crease in busi­ness com­pared to 2022, with pro­jec­tions for 2024 show­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly a 30 per cent in­crease com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.