ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has called on Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris to “re­sign from her po­si­tion in dis­grace,” af­ter ac­cus­ing her of false­ly claim­ing she sub­mit­ted in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the pri­vate pro­mot­er in­volved in the $9.3 mil­lion To­ba­go Rhythm & Soul Fes­ti­val.

Dur­ing last Thurs­day’s ple­nary sit­ting, Bur­ris said the fes­ti­val op­er­ates as a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship but claimed she did not have the pro­mot­er’s name at hand. She as­sured the Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil that the in­for­ma­tion would be pro­vid­ed by the next sit­ting.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day morn­ing, the Di­vi­sion of Tourism claimed that Bur­ris had sub­mit­ted the name with­in an hour of the ple­nary sit­ting via her of­fice.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris said yes­ter­day, dur­ing a news con­fer­ence, that no such record ex­ists.

“She would have bla­tant­ly lied to To­ba­go, and if this is found to be true, then the Sec­re­tary has no oth­er choice but to hang her head in dis­grace and do the ho­n­ourable thing by part­ing ways with the of­fice.” 

Mor­ris said, “She is say­ing that the state­ment by the me­dia was fake and giv­ing the im­pres­sion as though she com­plied and gave a re­sponse when to­day, 72 hours lat­er the clerk nor the mi­nor­i­ty leader have any record of this in­for­ma­tion be­ing sup­plied.”

In a re­lease be­fore Mor­ris’s news con­fer­ence, the Di­vi­sion of Tourism crit­i­cised a re­port by Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed, which re­port­ed that Bur­ris failed to dis­close the pro­mot­er’s name. The Di­vi­sion de­scribed the re­port as mis­lead­ing, claim­ing that the Sec­re­tary had re­spond­ed to all ques­tions on the or­der pa­per prompt­ly and in line with prop­er pro­ce­dures.

The To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion Lim­it­ed al­so la­belled the new re­ports as “in­ac­cu­rate.”

The com­mis­sion in a sep­a­rate re­lease min­utes be­fore said, “The pro­mot­er’s in­volve­ment is to arrange and se­cure the artiste (Bu­ju Ban­ton), who will be com­pen­sat­ed for his per­for­mance.” 

Even with that, Mor­ris ques­tioned why hadn’t the di­vi­sion and com­mis­sion used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make the name pub­lic in the re­leas­es.

He al­so ques­tioned why the pro­mot­er’s iden­ti­ty re­mains a se­cret, say­ing, “You are giv­ing $9 mil­lion to some­one and don’t want to tell To­bag­o­ni­ans who this per­son is. Where is the trans­paren­cy they promised?” He al­so de­mand­ed clar­i­ty on the roles of the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion, the pri­vate pro­mot­er, and the THA in the fes­ti­val’s or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Mor­ris ac­cused the sec­re­tary of fal­si­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion and breach­ing her oath of of­fice. 

“She would have bla­tant­ly lied to To­ba­go and if this is found to be true then the Sec­re­tary has no oth­er choice than to hang her head in dis­grace do the ho­n­ourable thing and part way with the of­fice of the sec­re­tary.”

Mor­ris ques­tioned, what he called, the se­cre­cy be­hind the pri­vate pro­mot­er. He ac­cused Bur­ris of “dodge, hide and weave” to make the pro­mot­er’s name pub­lic. 

“But you are giv­ing $9 mil­lion to some­one and you don’t want to tell To­bag­o­ni­ans who this per­son is. What is there in this in­di­vid­ual to hide? Why are they so ashamed to re­veal the iden­ti­ty of this in­di­vid­ual? Where is the trans­paren­cy they promised?”