Michelle Loubon

?Vel Lewis, deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Cul­ture, says on­ly me­dia per­son­nel will be tak­en on a tour of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) at Princes Build­ing Grounds, Port-of-Spain, to­day.

He was re­spond­ing to a call yes­ter­day by in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the Coali­tion of Artists of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ACTT), Rubadiri Vic­tor, for a del­e­ga­tion of artistes to ac­com­pa­ny the me­dia tour of NA­PA to­day. Vic­tor was speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at The Pro­fes­sion­als In­sti­tute, Mu­cu­rapo. In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Lewis said: "Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Cul­ture Min­is­ter (Mar­lene Mc Don­ald) has al­ready de­cid­ed up­on a tour and they have to ad­here to the man­age­ment pol­i­cy.

"They (Coali­tion of Artists) may want a tour but I sus­pect af­ter the tour oth­er groups would be al­lowed to tour. But to­mor­row (to­day) it is strict­ly for the me­dia and based on the in­vi­ta­tion." Vic­tor, a for­mer Trinidad The­atre Work­shop ac­tor, had said: "We would love for a del­e­ga­tion of artistes to ac­com­pa­ny the me­dia as a pre­cur­sor for the full stake­hold­er analy­sis of the en­tire build­ing that must hap­pen. "This is an open call to the min­is­ter for an artiste del­e­ga­tion to ac­com­pa­ny the me­dia to­mor­row (to­day)."

In re­sponse to Lewis' com­ment, Vic­tor added: "We will see what hap­pens. "We are not re­al­ly af­ter a tour but whole stake­hold­er in­clu­sion. "We will like peo­ple to have a bal­anced view of what they have been see­ing. See­ing we know there are a lot of cor­rec­tions and things are be­ing pret­tied up." Dur­ing the press con­fer­ence, Vic­tor had said: "Madame Min­is­ter, we are not your en­e­my. We care about your coun­try, tra­di­tions and the fu­ture of our art­forms."