Carisa Lee

For­mer Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell has crit­i­cised Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin over a me­dia re­lease sent to the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT), call­ing it poor­ly timed and dis­re­spect­ful.

Ben­jamin’s state­ment, is­sued days be­fore African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, took aim at the ES­CTT’s rel­e­vance, plan­ning and role in the na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion.

Mitchell said the tone of the re­lease was scathing and amount­ed to a pub­lic scold­ing of one of the coun­try’s longest-stand­ing cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“Rather than fo­cus­ing on fos­ter­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship, the Min­is­ter, hav­ing tak­en up the post a mere 3 months ago, has cho­sen to pub­licly scold one of the na­tion’s old­est and most re­spect­ed cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said.

He added that the Min­is­ter’s ap­proach—crit­i­cis­ing the Com­mit­tee with­out of­fer­ing part­ner­ship—was “un­pro­duc­tive and dis­grace­ful”.

“At a time where the com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brates African Eman­ci­pa­tion, what is re­quired is col­lab­o­ra­tion and en­cour­age­ment, not con­dem­na­tion,” Mitchell said.

Out­side Par­lia­ment on Aber­crom­by Street yes­ter­day, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga al­so ex­pressed con­cern. He said he hoped those con­ver­sa­tions would have tak­en place be­hind closed doors, es­pe­cial­ly with Eman­ci­pa­tion Day so close.

Al­so weigh­ing in was for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who dis­missed Ben­jamin’s rec­om­men­da­tions as nei­ther new nor ground-break­ing.

She said they could have been dis­cussed with the Com­mit­tee af­ter the cel­e­bra­tions.

“The Min­is­ter's use of this sa­cred pe­ri­od to de­cry, rather than ho­n­our, is dis­re­spect­ful and shows clear dis­dain and dis­re­gard for the African com­mu­ni­ty. Poor judg­ment,” she said.

Pho­tos of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ben­jamin and oth­er UNC of­fi­cials at­tend­ing the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage event at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah were post­ed on­line this morn­ing.

The Ex­ec­u­tive Chair of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da, de­clined to com­ment at this time.