I re­cent­ly read where the pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Lu­ta­lo "Broth­er Re­sis­tance" Masim­ba took is­sue with the State fund­ing Car­ni­val events and then Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and their friends abus­ing free en­try to these events.

In re­ply to Broth­er Re­sis­tance's re­marks, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas thought it rea­son­able. "If the State gives sev­en, eight, nine, 10, 20 mil­lion dol­lars to an event, or to sup­port, I don't think it's un­rea­son­able that mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment should ex­pect to go to these events and not be able to take a friend or two." Dou­glas is re­port­ed to have said.

He had no prob­lem with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials get­ting free ac­cess to Car­ni­val events and bring­ing friends along. "How could the sys­tem be abused? The Gov­ern­ment funds a lot of these ac­tiv­i­ties and the mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment ex­pect to go to the event. What's abu­sive about that?"

What the good min­is­ter failed to un­der­stand is that State funds go­ing to any event, Car­ni­val or oth­er­wise, be­long to the cit­i­zens and there­fore it is un­rea­son­able for mem­bers of Gov­ern­ment to go to these events and take "a friend or two" free of charge un­less in­vit­ed.If the min­is­ter has no prob­lem go­ing in free and tak­ing friends, then we the tax­pay­ers should al­so be al­lowed to go in free and "take a friend or two", or three or four, af­ter all it's our mon­ey that a se­lect few seem to be en­joy­ing.

C Pe­ters,

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