ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Tem­pers flared in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, just days be­fore Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, as band­lead­ers protest­ed in front of the Di­vi­sion of Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion over this year’s al­lo­ca­tion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion re­quest­ed $1.3 mil­lion but was al­lo­cat­ed a lit­tle over $300,000 for prizes, which they said would be as low as $5,000 be­cause of the de­crease in funds.

The as­so­ci­a­tion claimed the mon­ey was al­so meant to cov­er oth­er op­er­a­tional costs.

By 9 am, just a hand­ful of mem­bers, dressed in tra­di­tion­al wear and hold­ing plac­ards, shout­ed loud enough for the Sec­re­tary of the di­vi­sion Tashia Bur­ris to hear their pleas.

The band­lead­ers said they felt dis­re­spect­ed by the way the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly de­scribed the qual­i­ty of mas on the is­land, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter not much had been done to help the fra­ter­ni­ty.

“Her­itage and all is dy­ing and if we don’t try to keep up the lega­cy and all them band­leader and them who die and gone, how you think they feel­ing now in ei­ther heav­en or hell,” said band­leader Mar­cellin Nedd.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence in Scar­bor­ough soon af­ter the protest, the leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots Wat­son Duke ac­cused the THA of “killing” To­ba­go’s Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val.

Duke said, “Stick break in their ears and here we have the whole thing col­laps­ing just when per­sons should be look­ing to have a great Car­ni­val in To­ba­go.

“Peo­ple are think­ing about go­ing to Trinidad or pack­ing up or call­ing it a day. Are we try­ing to kill Car­ni­val al­to­geth­er?”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that one day be­fore the protest, the head of the as­so­ci­a­tion, Di­anne Mc­Crim­mon, was called to meet with Bur­ris to have the is­sues rec­ti­fied.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Bur­ris said the is­sues had been re­solved fol­low­ing a meet­ing which be­gan dur­ing the protest.

She lament­ed hav­ing to mi­cro­man­age and in­ter­vene in ad­min­is­tra­tive op­er­a­tions with­in the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion.

She said these is­sues stemmed from a lack of un­der­stand­ing of the THA’s Car­ni­val pro­pos­al.

“I was in a meet­ing with the chair­man since 8.30, along with oth­er mem­bers of her ex­ec­u­tive. My un­der­stand­ing is that there were per­sons down­stairs, I don’t know if four peo­ple qual­i­fy as a protest.

“The is­sues have been beau­ti­ful­ly re­solved. There were no is­sues that could not have been re­solved be­fore. I think it was due to a lack of un­der­stand­ing of what the THA po­si­tion was. That was made clear this morn­ing. We made sure every­one walked away sat­is­fied,” she ex­plained.

Bur­ris said she got in­volved to bring peace to the sit­u­a­tion.

“It’s un­for­tu­nate that I had to sit as Sec­re­tary and do a lot of ad­min­is­tra­tive work that I am not sup­posed to be do­ing in terms of lay­ing out for the mas bands lead­ers ex­act­ly what the Fes­ti­val Com­mis­sion can ac­com­mo­date. And at the end of the day, com­pe­ti­tion can on­ly hap­pen with com­peti­tors.”

She said the di­vi­sion asked for reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion but on­ly re­ceived it dur­ing the meet­ing.

The head of the band­lead­ers’ as­so­ci­a­tion Di­anne Mc­Crim­mon said both par­ties agreed to an in­crease in prize mon­ey prizes, to re­vert the grants to the orig­i­nal struc­ture and to rein­tro­duce the ju­nior band of the year.

While she was hap­py with the changes, Mc­Crim­mon said she was dis­ap­point­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion had to threat­en protest to have the is­sue re­solved.