Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

There ap­pears to be a grow­ing rift be­tween at least two mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment over the con­struc­tion of a stage in the sea at the Karuk­era One Love Mu­sic Fes­ti­val with the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lovell Fran­cis squar­ing off against Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat.

There is al­so ev­i­dence that the gov­ern­ment knew two years ago about the plan to hold the con­cert in T&T with the con­struc­tion of a stage in the sea and ap­proved Fran­cis’ vis­it to Guade­loupe on a “diplo­mat­ic mis­sion” at the in­vi­ta­tion of the pro­mot­er of the Karuk­era One Love Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

A Cab­i­net note shows that ap­proval was grant­ed for Fran­cis to trav­el to Guade­loupe for four days in Au­gust 2018 so he could be fet­ed by or­gan­is­ers of the Karuk­era One Love Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. It cost tax­pay­ers $5,474 to pay for Fran­cis’ per diem for that trip.

Those funds were paid from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion un­der sub item Of­fi­cial Over­seas Trav­el, a Cab­i­net Note dat­ed Au­gust 2, 2018 stat­ed. The brunt of the cost for Fran­cis’ trip was borne by the Karuk­era One Love Events and in­clud­ed the cost of trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion and VIP tick­ets to the mu­sic fes­ti­val.

Fran­cis has been gush­ing about that trip on his so­cial me­dia pages since then. He al­so de­fend­ed the con­struc­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial stage in the sea at Mara­cas Bay yes­ter­day say­ing if it was built “there would have been no is­sues”. He said pre­vi­ous events done sim­i­lar­ly were all prob­lem-free.

Ramb­harat, who on Sun­day in­struct­ed Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to re­scind any sup­port for con­struc­tion of the stage in the sea in Mara­cas, said he could not re­call Cab­i­net’s ap­proval of Fran­cis’ vis­it to Guade­loupe. Ramb­harat said since his in­volve­ment in the con­tentious is­sue from Jan­u­ary 30 to now, Fran­cis’ Cab­i­net-ap­proved trip has not been raised.

Ramb­harat said he has had no in­ter­ac­tion with the event’s or­gan­is­ers.

The diplo­mat­ic mis­sion Fran­cis was in­vit­ed to was held in Saint-Fran­cois, Guade­loupe from Au­gust 16-20, 2018.

Fran­cis had been in­vit­ed to the event two months ear­li­er.

On Au­gust 21, 2018 the day af­ter the diplo­mat­ic mis­sion end­ed, Fran­cis took to his Face­book page to tell of his ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Morn­ing folks. I am back home and ready to re­sume nor­mal du­ties. This trip was eye open­ing and worth­while. There is cer­tain­ly much to be gained mu­tu­al­ly by forg­ing clos­er ties with Guade­loupe. Our PM is a de­vout and con­firmed re­gion­al­ist, who I am sure al­ready sees the po­ten­tial... eco­nom­ic and oth­er­wise that lies there­in... or else my vis­it would not have been ap­proved,” Fran­cis wrote.

Machel Mon­tano per­formed at that Karuk­era fes­ti­val.

A year lat­er, on Au­gust 26, 2019, Fran­cis again took to his Face­book to talk about the Karuk­era fes­ti­val and it even­tu­al­ly be­ing held in T&T.

“Hey peeps. Last year I had the great plea­sure of rep­re­sent­ing us at the Karuk­era One Love Fes­ti­val in Guade­loupe, cen­tral to which is the in­tent of strength­en­ing cul­tur­al ties be­tween our ter­ri­to­ries. In­ter­est­ing­ly the fes­ti­val is be­ing held this year in Paris, France, but next year it is to be held right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This morn­ing it was my plea­sure to share a light mo­ment with some of the or­gan­is­ers and to meet the of­fi­cial mas­cot of the fes­ti­val, Cheers.”

With the re­cent is­sues be­ing faced by the Karuk­era team over its planned event at Mara­cas Beach card­ed for Fri­day, Fran­cis took to his Face­book page to again speak in favour of the event. He al­so de­fend­ed the stage con­struc­tion.

“Much has been made of the pre­vi­ous­ly planned con­struc­tion of a stage in the sea which makes lit­tle prac­ti­cal sense. If built there would have been no is­sues. This fes­ti­val has been held re­gion wide and in France with­out prob­lems and I think that Trinidad is on the same plan­et. But that has been set­tled.... and five hun­dred vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed here for this event alone and I wish the or­gan­is­ers well not just for the event but the evo­lu­tion of a longer term re­la­tion­ship be­tween us and Guade­loupe. Pun­to fi­nal,” Fran­cis wrote.

Doc­u­ments re­ceived by Guardian Me­dia showed that the event re­ceived ap­proval from the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of State lands Bhan­mati Seecha­ran on Feb­ru­ary 6. The let­ter was sent to Ja­son Joseph, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Mad­house J’ou­vert lo­cat­ed in Wood­brook, act­ing on be­half of Karuk­era One Love Events.

The COSL said it had “no ob­jec­tion” to the event but not­ed that “ex­tra vig­i­lance must, how­ev­er, be main­tained dur­ing dark hours”

“This no ob­jec­tion let­ter is sub­ject­ed to all oth­er statu­to­ry ap­provals and a demon­stra­tion on a sound con­tin­gency plan with suf­fi­cient and ef­fi­cient staff in at­ten­dance,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The or­gan­is­ers were told var­i­ous agen­cies, in­clud­ing the T&T Coast Guard, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, and Life Guard Ser­vice,s should all be made aware pri­or to the event and on the day of the event it­self, of the max­i­mum num­ber of per­sons catered for and a writ­ten con­tin­gency plan, in­clud­ing a com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan, in the event of an un­want­ed or un­time­ly in­ci­dent.

Ramb­harat said be­cause the or­gan­is­ers failed to ad­dress these stip­u­la­tions he opt­ed to act in the safe­ty of the pub­lic. He said if any­thing hap­pened to pa­trons the State would be held li­able.

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell said one of T&T’s main nich­es is events tourism and the or­gan­is­ers of Karuk­era One Love Events had de­cid­ed to col­lab­o­rate and in­vest mil­lions of Eu­ros in­to T&T Car­ni­val.

He ex­plained: “We are in­ter­est­ed not just in the in­vest­ment, they are in­vest­ing mil­lions of Eu­ros to host this event which is world-class and world held all over the re­gion and in Paris. The in­vest­ment ben­e­fits main­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go sup­pli­ers and artistes and the event is one in which hun­dreds of vis­i­tors are com­ing here specif­i­cal­ly for.”

Mitchell in­sist­ed that pub­lic safe­ty must be para­mount but warned that as a coun­try we had to en­sure we pro­mot­ed and pro­tect­ed in­vest­ment in the tourism sec­tor.

“It is im­por­tant for us not to chase away in­vestors through our ad­verse com­ments and crit­i­cism and in so do­ing chase away in­ven­tive and in­no­v­a­tive ef­forts from for­eign in­vestors in Trinidad Car­ni­val be­cause we are now com­pet­ing with Ja­maica and Mi­a­mi and Bar­ba­dos.

“We are at a dis­ad­van­tage be­cause we are fur­ther away from source mar­kets and have to con­tin­ue to in­no­vate.”