The Min­istry of Cul­ture has been crit­i­cised by the Tas­sa As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (TATT) over the treat­ment of tas­sa mu­sic at the re­cent­ly held Car­ifes­ta XIV fes­ti­val in Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing on Sat­ur­day night when the as­so­ci­a­tion held its an­nu­al Na­tion­al Tas­sara­ma Com­pe­ti­tion at the Gilbert Park, Cou­va, vice-pres­i­dent Wen­dell Ever­s­ley, said he was un­hap­py at the small use of tas­sa.

He told the hun­dreds pack­ing the venue that tas­sa was be­ing treat­ed like a ‘bas­tard child’ by the gov­ern­ment.

Ever­s­ley said tas­sa was blanked at the re­cent­ly held Car­ifes­ta be­cause of what he called, the fail­ings of the Min­is­ter and Min­istry of Cul­ture.

“I call on shame of the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture to­day be­cause you can­not say you are the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and just as you have steel­pan as the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, tas­sa is the sec­ond na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T. We can­not con­tin­ue be­ing dis­re­spect­ed,” Ever­s­ley said.

He added that tas­sa bands ex­pend large funds to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion with­out know­ing what is the prize mon­ey since the min­istry had so far failed to an­nounce how much funds they would be giv­ing to the com­pe­ti­tion.

Ever­s­ley said it was time vot­ers held back their votes and vote for some­one who cares about cul­ture and tas­sa, even if this means that he has to throw his hat in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring. Ever­s­ley lat­er told Guardian Me­dia that he would like to fight the seat of Diego Mar­tin West on a Con­gress of the Peo­ple tick­et.

Bran­don Val­ley, the Gov­er­nor of T&T Cul­ture on the T&T Youth Gov­ern­ment (TTYG), pledged the Youth Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port to the TATT. He said the TTYG have been en­gag­ing in talks with spon­sors for the 2020 Tas­sara­ma fi­nals.

Val­ley said he was ex­treme­ly proud of the tal­ent­ed young peo­ple who have been prac­tic­ing for the com­pe­ti­tion.

He said the TTYG would be launch­ing its first an­nu­al cul­ture and arts awards where there were cat­e­gories for tas­sa and oth­er el­e­ments of In­di­an Cul­ture.

The com­pe­ti­tion be­gan at 5.30 pm and went un­til af­ter mid­night when the re­sults were an­nounced.

Eight bands took part in the Ju­nior cat­e­go­ry and 14 in the Se­nior cat­e­gories. Drum­mers were re­quired to play five dif­fer­ent tas­sa hands.