In­nis Fran­cis

Some mem­bers of the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty have passed a vote of no con­fi­dence against sit­ting Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) South/Cen­tral chair­man Steve “Ras Kom­man­da” Pas­call.

The vote was tak­en dur­ing an ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing at the San Fer­nan­do Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre on Sun­day.

Pas­call, who has served as zon­al chair­man for the past 36 years, was ac­cused of aid­ing and abet­ting wrong­do­ing by un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly adding 26 new mem­bers to the South/Cen­tral Zone.

Mem­bers al­leged that Pas­call ac­cept­ed a pack­age from TU­CO’s Port-of-Spain of­fice con­tain­ing the names of per­sons to be added to the South/Cen­tral Zone.

Vice-chair­man Vic­to­ria “Queen Vic­to­ria” Coop­er-Rahim, as­sist­ed by An­na-Lisa Hud­dlin, trustee An­n­marie Don­awa and PRO Carv­er Thomp­son, chaired the meet­ing.

Coop­er-Rahim said the meet­ing was prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed as an ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing and had a le­gal quo­rum. She said the ex­ec­u­tive had been ig­nor­ing mem­bers’ con­cerns over the years.

She said mat­ters aris­ing al­so in­clud­ed set­ting a date for the up­com­ing South/Cen­tral Zone elec­tions and se­lect­ing a re­turn­ing of­fi­cer.

Coop­er-Rahim said mem­bers moved the vote of no con­fi­dence against Pas­call be­cause of his al­leged in­volve­ment in the un­con­sti­tu­tion­al ad­di­tion of the new mem­bers, with­out the knowl­edge or ap­proval of the ex­ec­u­tive.

“It was a dis­re­spect to his of­fice to bring the 12 per­sons in­to the zone, with no ap­proval from the zone,” she said.

Mem­bers pro­duced a re­ceipt show­ing a pay­ment of $2,100 to First Cit­i­zens Bank on May 18 for 14 of the 26 mem­bers whose names were in the pack­age.

Coop­er-Rahim said the nor­mal process for ad­mit­ting a new mem­ber should in­clude com­plet­ing a mem­ber­ship ap­pli­ca­tion and pay­ing a $50 reg­is­tra­tion fee, af­ter which the ap­pli­ca­tion should be sent to TU­CO’s head of­fice for ap­proval.

Thomp­son said ten per­sons whose names were in the en­ve­lope al­so vot­ed in the Ju­ly 12 gen­er­al elec­tions. The gen­er­al elec­tions are held every three years.

Coop­er-Rahim said she had sent a let­ter to TU­CO’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary out­lin­ing their in­ten­tions and re­sub­mit­ted the same let­ter on Au­gust 10.

The South/Cen­tral Zone elec­tions are card­ed for Sep­tem­ber 13 at San Fer­nan­do City Hall.

Sev­er­al calls to Pas­call went unan­swered, with a voice record­ing stat­ing: “Hey, I’m not avail­able right now, but as soon as I can, I would call you right back.”