ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Con­fu­sion over who holds the tourism port­fo­lio sparked a heat­ed 18-minute ex­change in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s ple­nary sit­ting on Thurs­day evening.

Tashia Bur­ris, who went on ap­proved leave al­most two weeks ago, re­turned to the cham­ber, al­though Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett had been an­nounced as act­ing Tourism Sec­re­tary dur­ing her ab­sence. No for­mal up­date had been giv­en on whether Bur­ris had re­sumed her du­ties.

The ap­pear­ance of both at the sit­ting prompt­ed Wat­son Duke to refuse to pro­ceed with his ques­tions on the Or­der Pa­per un­til Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer Ab­by Tay­lor clar­i­fied who cur­rent­ly leads the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties, and Trans­porta­tion.

“I know it is not Coun­cil­lor Tashia Bur­ris. Madam Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer, may I clar­i­fy for you who is now the Sec­re­tary for Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties, and Trans­porta­tion?” Duke asked.

Tay­lor said that Bur­ris re­mained the Sec­re­tary and di­rect­ed her to an­swer the ques­tions. But Duke pushed back, in­sist­ing he had a right to clar­i­ty.

“I’m ask­ing for clar­i­ty. And I think I was ab­solute­ly clear in stat­ing the di­choto­my that ex­ists,” he said, at one point telling the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer: “Don’t chal­lenge me, but clar­i­fy for me.”

Bur­ris, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed Duke’s claim that she had no stand­ing to speak for the di­vi­sion. She told the cham­ber she re­mained the Sec­re­tary of Tourism un­til for­mal­ly re­moved.

“Un­til I am in­formed and this House is in­formed that I’m no longer a coun­cil­lor with the ap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary in charge of the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion, I am still the Sec­re­tary,” Bur­ris said.

De­spite Tay­lor’s re­peat­ed in­struc­tions to stay with­in pro­ce­dure, Duke con­tin­ued to ar­gue for a rul­ing on the mat­ter. He closed his con­tri­bu­tion, say­ing he could not be­lieve Bur­ris’ re­sponse.

“Madam pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, to use my fa­mous state­ment, I am shocked. I am flab­ber­gast­ed. I am blown away by this state­ment,” he told the cham­ber.

The ple­nary sit­ting even­tu­al­ly moved on to oth­er ques­tions.

On Sep­tem­ber 17, the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary an­nounced that As­sem­bly­man Zor­isha Hack­ett had been tem­porar­i­ly as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties, and Trans­porta­tion in the THA.

No rea­son was giv­en for the de­ci­sion.

The state­ment then said, Hack­ett will con­tin­ue to serve as Sec­re­tary of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, and Tech­nol­o­gy while car­ry­ing out the du­ties of the ad­di­tion­al port­fo­lio.