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Wednesday, May 7, 2025

A Taste of Carnival bacchanal... TTCBA in turmoil

by

Joshua Seemungal
942 days ago
20221009
NCC Chairman Winston ‘Gypsy’ Peters, left, speaks with commissioner Rosalind Gabriel, chief judge Nigel Eastman and CEO Colin Lucas after the press conference to announce the Band of the Year at the Grand Stand Queen’s Park Savannah in 2019.

NCC Chairman Winston ‘Gypsy’ Peters, left, speaks with commissioner Rosalind Gabriel, chief judge Nigel Eastman and CEO Colin Lucas after the press conference to announce the Band of the Year at the Grand Stand Queen’s Park Savannah in 2019.

ANISTO ALVES

With Car­ni­val 2023 less than five months away, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) re­mains in tur­moil, en­gulfed by in­fight­ing, res­ig­na­tions and on­go­ing le­gal bat­tles.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, recog­nised by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of car­ni­val band lead­ers, can­not func­tion be­cause its board con­sists of on­ly three mem­bers–two mem­bers less than the re­quired quo­rum ac­cord­ing to the TTC­BA’s by-laws.

Fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the sit­u­a­tion, there are sev­er­al le­gal mat­ters be­fore the court in­volv­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, the cur­rent board, for­mer di­rec­tors, and for­mer TTC­BA pres­i­dent Ros­alind Gabriel.

In Au­gust, High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in grant­ed an in­junc­tion to stop a spe­cial meet­ing called by the re­main­ing mem­bers of the TTC­BA board, aimed at ap­point­ing di­rec­tors to meet the quo­rum.

A group of 17 or­di­nary mem­bers, in­clud­ing Gabriel, sought the in­junc­tion.

The group al­so is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the TTC­BA Board, claim­ing that the board failed to re­spond to a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion filed against it.

A sec­ond mat­ter be­tween for­mer board mem­bers Dune Ali, Ger­ard Weekes and Jacque­line Burgess, and Gabriel and the TTC­BA al­so re­mains be­fore the High Court. The claimants al­lege that the TTC­BA held an un­law­ful board meet­ing to re­move Weekes and Burgess from the ex­ec­u­tive.

And as the par­ties wait for judge­ments to be de­liv­ered, the fu­ture of the TTC­BA re­mains un­cer­tain just five years af­ter tak­ing over from the NC­BA as the as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing band lead­ers.

Justice Carol Gobin

Justice Carol Gobin

The Board’s ac­count

Over the last week, the Sun­day Guardian spoke to more than five se­nior TTC­BA sources, in­clud­ing cur­rent di­rec­tors, for­mer di­rec­tors and se­nior mem­bers about the state of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

All of them asked to speak off the record, say­ing that they were scared of, what they called, the ‘pos­si­ble po­lit­i­cal reper­cus­sions’ of speak­ing on the record about these is­sues.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the board, which was elect­ed in late 2020, split af­ter the 2022 Taste of Car­ni­val show.

The TTC­BA sources blamed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s cur­rent state on the lead­er­ship of Gabriel, the for­mer TTC­BA pres­i­dent.

Gabriel, who was re-elect­ed as pres­i­dent in No­vem­ber 2020, re­signed on March 23, 2022, cit­ing in­ter­nal pres­sure to force her out.

Fol­low­ing her res­ig­na­tion, she formed part of a group that filed an in­junc­tion to pre­vent the board from hold­ing a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing to re­con­sti­tute the board.

The board and sev­er­al TTC­BA se­nior mem­bers are ques­tion­ing her de­ci­sion to file an in­junc­tion, say­ing the move is stalling the as­so­ci­a­tion.

They said, af­ter all, Gabriel was one of two peo­ple who re­cent­ly re­signed, leav­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion short of its quo­rum in the first place.

The sources said dis­agree­ments with Gabriel ex­ist­ed for months, main­ly over a per­ceived lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the pres­i­dent and her di­rec­tors.

How­ev­er,  board sources said things hit the fan over two is­sues re­lat­ed to the 2022 Taste of Car­ni­val Show–the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a new judg­ing sys­tem and a break­down of how the $1 mil­lion do­nat­ed by First Cit­i­zens was spent.

Judg­ing sys­tem un­der ques­tion

Di­rec­tors, for­mer di­rec­tors and se­nior mem­bers of the TTC­BA have ex­pressed con­cern over a ‘new judg­ing sys­tem’ used for the Taste of Car­ni­val 2022 Se­nior Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion.

A group of present and past board mem­bers called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be launched by the then TTC­BA pres­i­dent in­to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion sys­tem al­leged­ly im­ple­ment­ed by chief judge Nigel East­man.

Their call came af­ter one of the com­pe­ti­tion’s judges re­port­ed to the board that they ob­served judges be­ing hand­ed back score­sheets to be rescored dur­ing the Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion in Taste of Car­ni­val 2022.

“We said, Miss Gabriel, we have to in­ves­ti­gate this be­cause we un­der­stand that the judg­ing is not fair. Some­thing is wrong. One of the judges said two fe­male judges were giv­en their score­sheets to rescore by the chief judge…We said we have to find out about this sys­tem of judg­ing that is tak­ing place in our Car­ni­val,” a di­rec­tor said.

“East­man told us that he has a new sys­tem. There is a set of front­line judges and a back­line set of judges. The front­line judges don’t de­ter­mine the score, it’s the back­line judges who ex­am­ine the front­line judges and de­ter­mine which is good for them or not good for them…That came out of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The board sources said be­fore the change an ag­gre­gate scor­ing sys­tem was used. The ag­gre­gate sys­tem took the scores of sev­en in­di­vid­ual judges. The high­est and low­est scores were dropped, and then the fi­nal score was found by av­er­ag­ing the re­main­ing five scores.

“He (East­man) changed that, and nat­u­ral­ly, now you’re more like­ly to have bi­as­es. The back­line judges are now the ones who take the judge’s scores in the front­line and de­ter­mine what the re­sult should be…That is wrong,” a for­mer com­pe­ti­tion judge, and se­nior mem­ber, said.

“The chief judge, what he does, has sev­en judges in front, four judges be­hind, and then he has the fi­nal say, which the mas fra­ter­ni­ty doesn’t know about. So, if sev­en come up and say John Smith won Band of the Year, the four be­hind could over­rule it, and if they don’t over­rule it, then he could eas­i­ly over­rule it, and that has to be ex­posed,” a board mem­ber said.

An­oth­er board mem­ber con­firmed a com­plaint was made by one of the judges about East­man.

They said, in their opin­ion, the chief judge ought to have been re­moved from the po­si­tion.

An in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed in­to the claims against East­man, and the re­port de­ter­mined that the judg­ing sys­tem ought to be re-ex­am­ined.

The re­port, which sev­er­al board sources al­lege was sani­tised, made no dis­ci­pli­nary pro­nounce­ments about East­man’s al­leged in­volve­ment, how­ev­er.

“If you make a change to an ac­count­ing vouch­er, you can’t dis­card the vouch­er, you have to keep the old vouch­er, draw two lines through the can­cel so that you could see the change…When it was asked of East­man what he did with the old score­card, he said, dis­card it…Why would you do that?” a board source re­called from the TTC­BA’s tri­bunal.

TTC­BA’s chief judge: I was cleared

Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed TTC­BA’s Chief Judge Nigel East­man for com­ment on the claims made by board mem­bers and for­mer board mem­bers.

East­man con­firmed that he ap­peared be­fore a TTC­BA tri­bunal, but said he was cleared.

“That is so un­true. I use the same sys­tem–sev­en judges–one high, one low and the rest of the marks are used. In the less­er cat­e­gories, I used five judges–the high and low are re­moved and I use the three scores,” East­man said.

“They (the board) don’t even know the process and as I ex­plained to the tri­bunal, it’s a process. If it is a judge writes some­thing, I have to scru­ti­nise it to see if there are any is­sues. Like, for ex­am­ple, if some­body puts in a mark of 53, but in their com­ments, they wrote–ex­cel­lent pro­duc­tion, you can’t have ex­cel­lent and 53, so I would send the scores back.”

East­man said it was ‘high­ly ir­reg­u­lar’ for the board of the TTC­BA to throw al­le­ga­tions against him, giv­en the tur­moil they find them­selves in cur­rent­ly.

“It’s in­ter­est­ing to hear what the al­le­ga­tions are, and from whom it is com­ing be­cause when I was as­signed chief judge it was when Ros­alind Gabriel was in charge. She checked over the sys­tem and said, go,” he said about the claims made by present and for­mer TTC­BA di­rec­tors.

“Since the TTC­BA has forced Gabriel out of pow­er and some ques­tion­able peo­ple are now in pow­er, all of a sud­den a lot of al­le­ga­tions are com­ing on me; al­le­ga­tions I can­not un­der­stand. It’s al­ways a case of sour grapes. They put out a band and didn’t win, so the judge do some­thing. I choose a pan­el and the pan­el judges, I don’t judge...They want to make mediocre cos­tumes and ex­pect to be in the fi­nal.”

Carnival Queen 2022 Shynel Camile Brizan portrays Olugbe-Rere Ko-The Spirt who brings Good things in the African category during the Kings and Queen finals at the Queen’s Park Savannah. Port-of-Spain, in March.

Carnival Queen 2022 Shynel Camile Brizan portrays Olugbe-Rere Ko-The Spirt who brings Good things in the African category during the Kings and Queen finals at the Queen’s Park Savannah. Port-of-Spain, in March.

KERWIN PIERRE

'They are try­ing to start mis­chief'

Mean­while, Gabriel ac­cused the cur­rent and for­mer di­rec­tors, who blamed her for im­ple­ment­ing the judg­ing sys­tem in ques­tion, of try­ing to start mis­chief.

Say­ing they nev­er proved them­selves ca­pa­ble of the po­si­tions they held, she said, “There’s an in­de­pen­dent group of judges who do the judg­ing. Once every­thing is put in place, the judges form their own opin­ions in­de­pen­dent­ly. I didn’t judge. This is­sue start­ed the en­tire con­fu­sion in the TTC­BA.”

The TTC­BA, bar­ring a change, is ex­pect­ed to over­see the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of many of the Car­ni­val 2023 com­pe­ti­tions.

The $1 mil­lion do­na­tion

Ac­cord­ing to cur­rent and for­mer board mem­bers, de­spite re­quests, Gabriel did not pro­vide them with a doc­u­ment­ed break­down of how the $1 mil­lion First Cit­i­zens do­nat­ed to the Taste of Car­ni­val’s Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion was spent.

Af­ter the NCC pro­vid­ed $1.5 mil­lion to the TTC­BA for the Taste of Car­ni­val Show 2022, Gabriel se­cured an­oth­er $1 mil­lion in spon­sor­ship from FCB.

“The board was told that she se­cured $1 mil­lion from FCB. The board was not aware of how the funds were be­ing dis­persed. The board did not sit down and say, we will give first prize X, or even if we had a draft that she changed af­ter, there was noth­ing. We did not know what the prize mon­ey was about, noth­ing at all,” an un­named di­rec­tor claimed.

The claim was sup­port­ed by cur­rent and for­mer di­rec­tors. Sev­er­al board mem­bers and for­mer board mem­bers said they in­di­vid­u­al­ly asked Gabriel for a break­down, but were nev­er giv­en one.

They claimed, in­stead, they were blocked on What­sApp and os­tracised.

“No­body could ask her how she spent it, what she did with it, what was the prize struc­ture and it’s like, Miss Gabriel, you have a board, why don’t you com­mu­ni­cate with the board? And there was no an­swer. It’s like she was act­ing as though we were ask­ing her too many ques­tions, and then she upped and re­signed,” an­oth­er un­named board source said.

“We were ask­ing about the ac­count­abil­i­ty of the $1 mil­lion and her ac­count­abil­i­ty to the board was to say $820,000 was paid in prize mon­ey and $180,000 was paid in sup­pli­ers. No writ­ten doc­u­ment, noth­ing…It nev­er even come through our ac­count. Every­thing was paid through the FCB ac­count, and that’s why we were query­ing it. It should have come through our ac­count if it’s spon­sor­ship mon­ey. That is just wrong,” a board source said.

Gabriel gives her ac­count

The Sun­day Guardian spoke to the for­mer TTC­BA pres­i­dent about the ac­cu­sa­tions made by the board and some for­mer di­rec­tors. She said she strug­gles to un­der­stand why the board is com­plain­ing about her still since she left the or­gan­i­sa­tion in March, giv­ing the board free reign.

She de­nied al­le­ga­tions that she op­er­at­ed as a dic­ta­tor dur­ing her tenure in of­fice.

The chil­dren's mas band leader said that due to no fault of her own, she had no choice but to run it as a one-man show.

“I went out, in the last minute, and got spon­sor­ship from FCB–All of this was aired in the news­pa­pers al­ready. I nev­er saw any mem­bers of the board in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to help me with any­thing, ex­cept the PRO. So all who talk­ing now, nev­er showed their face to help any­body,” Gabriel said.

“I did my ut­most best. The Taste of Car­ni­val event was very well run. The Kings and Queens said it was the quick­est they ever got paid in their lives. They got mon­ey on March 23, every­body was able to col­lect their prize monies. But none of that pleased the board. So when I be­gan hear­ing the whis­pers, I qui­et­ly sub­mit­ted my res­ig­na­tion and went home in my house and left them to run it how they want it to be run.”

Un­like the board, Gabriel be­lieved that the split came af­ter then TTC­BA vice pres­i­dent An­drew Al­lene be­gan al­leged­ly blam­ing her for his cos­tume's plac­ing in the Se­nior Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion.

Gabriel al­so de­nied al­le­ga­tions that she was yet to ac­count for First Cit­i­zens' $1 mil­lion do­na­tion to the Taste of Car­ni­val 2022 show.

She said the break­down of the prizes was avail­able in the TTC­BA of­fice at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

“It was al­ways there, and the break­down of every cent of Car­ni­val is in the NCC as well, and it has been there since Car­ni­val fin­ished. You could go to the NCC and they will show you the fold­er. What hap­pened with the FCB mon­ey is that when they de­cid­ed they would give $1 mil­lion in prizes for Kings and Queens, the break­down was $180,000 for the NCC to help with the pro­duc­tion of the show, and the rest of that $820,000 was dis­trib­uted straight to the Kings’ and Queens’ ac­counts,” Gabriel said.

“I left the TTC­BA with every cent ac­count­ed for. I al­so left the TTC­BA with four years' fi­nan­cials–2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.”

The for­mer TTC­BA pres­i­dent said de­spite the as­so­ci­a­tion’s cur­rent state she was hop­ing that an elec­tion will be called soon, and a new, com­pe­tent slate of board di­rec­tors would be in­stalled.

She was al­so con­fi­dent that Car­ni­val 2023 will be a qual­i­ty show.

Since the TTC­BA board, led by Gabriel, as­sumed con­trol in No­vem­ber 2020, two di­rec­tors (Ger­ard Weekes and Jacque­line Burgess) were re­moved, a pres­i­dent (Gabriel) and an act­ing pres­i­dent (An­drew Al­lene) re­signed, while an­oth­er two board mem­bers (Mark Ayen and Dune Ali) re­signed.

Ac­cord­ing to the as­so­ci­a­tion’s by-laws, the TTC­BA board can­not car­ry out func­tions un­less it meets its quo­rum of five peo­ple.

The cur­rent board can­not con­vene its mem­ber­ship for an elec­tion un­til the high court in­junc­tion, filed by Gabriel and 16 oth­ers, is lift­ed.

A judge­ment is ex­pect­ed with­in two weeks.

The TTC­BA was formed in Jan­u­ary 2013 by a group of band lead­ers that broke away from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Board As­so­ci­a­tion which was led by David Lopez.

Lopez faced sev­er­al cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions from the mem­ber­ship dur­ing his stint as NC­BA leader.

TTC­BA was recog­nised by the Gov­ern­ment in 2017 as the as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing lo­cal band lead­ers.

Carnival


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