ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has crit­i­cized the Sec­re­tary for Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties & Trans­porta­tion, Coun­cil­lor Tashia Bur­ris, for fail­ing to dis­close the pri­vate in­vestor set to ben­e­fit from some $9.3 mil­lion in fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed to the To­ba­go Rhythm & Soul Fes­ti­val.

Dur­ing Thurs­day’s sit­ting of the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture, Sec­re­tary Bur­ris re­vealed that the Fes­ti­val is a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship in­volv­ing the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion and a pri­vate pro­mot­er, in re­sponse to a ques­tion posed by the mi­nor­i­ty coun­cil.

The Tourism Sec­re­tary al­so re­port­ed that fund­ing for the Fes­ti­val is be­ing sourced through gate re­ceipts, spon­sor­ships, and ad­di­tion­al al­ter­na­tive fi­nanc­ing mech­a­nisms.

How­ev­er, when pressed by the Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil to name the pri­vate part­ner, Sec­re­tary Bur­ris ad­mit­ted she did not have the in­for­ma­tion at hand, at which point Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil­lor Petal Daniel-Benoit took the Sec­re­tary to task.

“It is ap­palling that the Di­vi­sion and the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion is putting out $9.3 mil­lion and the Sec­re­tary is un­aware and can­not tell the House this in­for­ma­tion,” the Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil­lor said.  “How soon will this in­fo come to the Mi­nor­i­ty and the peo­ple of To­ba­go for their hard earned $9.3 mil­lion.”

The Tourism Sec­re­tary de­fend­ed her po­si­tion, stat­ing that she was pre­pared to ad­dress the ques­tions list­ed in the Or­der Pa­per.

She al­so ar­gued that the Fes­ti­val is a new ini­tia­tive aimed at boost­ing To­ba­go’s events tourism in­dus­try and is not in­tend­ed to make a prof­it.

The To­ba­go Rhythm & Soul Fes­ti­val is sched­uled for April 2025, and the head­line act is reg­gae su­per­star Bu­ju Ban­ton.