The dust has now settled on the Tobago House of Assembly’s inaugural Carnival and it is time for a genuine assessment of what was achieved.
To be certain, the public is not yet any wiser on what was accomplished, since the THA Executive Council is yet to hold a media briefing to give its account of what transpired, its success or failings.
In the interim, however, there have been mixed signals from various stakeholders.
On the one hand, Tobago Carnival Committee (TCC) chairman Meisha Trim has labelled the event a success for a first attempt, noting there were some issues which now require a few minor changes to be made going forward—which suggests the THA sees legitimate possibilities for the future.
Tobago Business Chamber president Martin George has also congratulated those who planned and executed the event. He noted it was a good start to a novel Carnival event in October but admitted to some hiccups. However, George has pledged his chamber’s support to the THA in planning for next year’s event, in the hope it will become part of the international calendar of carnivals attracting tourists to the island.
NCC chairman Winston “Gypsy” Peters also congratulated the THA for a well-planned event and also offered to support going forward, although he had indicated the coldness of the same TCC at the outset of the planning phase which effectively isolated the NCC.
But those are the positives.
Progressive Democratic Patriots leader Watson Duke has labelled the event a failure and called on THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine to apologise to Tobagonians for wasting $17.5 million in taxpayers’ money for its staging. He claims several of the main events were either a bust or affected by weather issues. In his view, THA officials benefited more than citizens, they having received complimentary tickets to all the big events while none of the money spent in the activity went back into the small man’s pockets.
Of course, given Duke’s public falling out with Augustine and his decision to operate as a one-man show within the Assembly, one may have expected nothing less from him.
What we are also certain of is that the influx of tourists to the island did not materialise, which is the initiative’s main goal—and once again, it was Trinidad-based citizens who made up the majority of individuals partaking of the festivities.
And this is exactly why the THA must now come forward to enlighten citizens about what played out. Indeed, if the THA is to broach another instalment of this activity, Secretary of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation Tashia Burris must by now have already held post-mortems in the hope of securing statistical information with which to do a real feasibility study on the event’s performance. There is too much riding on the potential of this event to the island’s tourism product for it to be approached in any other way. As such, we hope Ms Burris does her due diligence since we can no longer play with the money in the Treasury’s coffers as before. As such, we hope she will not play mas with the business ahead.