Chester Sambrano
Secretary of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities & Transportation Tashia Burris has defended the Tobago House of Assembly’s (THA) decision to seek help from Grenada and not Trinidad for hosting its first Carnival.
Burris spoke at the Monday Mandate news conference.
“There are those in the space who felt that Tobago should have gone to Trinidad first but the reality is before we were joined to Trinidad we were joined to Grenada,” she said.
Burris added that they are now re-establishing the relationships that once existed.
“When we looked at what may look similar to what we are trying to achieve it was not necessarily the Trinidad model,” she added.
She said that when they looked at size and scope, Grenada was the closest neighbour to what they felt they could achieve in the first year.
This is why a team, led by Assistant Secretary Megan Morrison, visited Grenada in May.
Burris said that Spice Mas will be a part of the Tobago Carnival experience.
In August, National Carnival Commission (NCC) chairman Winston ‘Gypsy’ Peters said he felt somewhat disheartened that the THA has failed to resume talks on the upcoming Tobago Carnival celebrations in October.
Peters said he remained in the dark over what was happening in Tobago for the inaugural event.
On another issue, Burris said as it related to complaints that there were not enough flights for people wanting to come to Tobago for Carnival, Caribbean Airlines has stepped in and stepped up.
“Caribbean Airlines has shown up for Tobago in a big way for this Carnival. They have actually been able to achieve going back to their schedule that existed pre-COVID...CAL has been able to add, to put on basically 19,000 plus seats for this Carnival period to support persons who want to access destination Tobago,” she explained.
Burris said the THA will not have to pay anything to CAL for the extra flights.
What they do plan to spend though is $17.5 million to cover the entire Carnival festivities.
“Our spend is really largely targeted towards marketing, one, two, to ensure that this is the safest Carnival that we can ever have.
On that note, she explained that the Police Service has committed to deploying 200 additional police officers to the island for the duration of the Carnival.
“So that anybody who gets any bright ideas Tobago is not the place to come or to be,” she said.
The Carnival is carded for October 28 to October 30 but over 80 events are scheduled to take place throughout the month.
The final event is the Parade of the Bands.
For this Burris said financial assistance is being given to bands.
“This THA took a decision to provide assistance, not grants, assistance to mas bands and cultural groups for this inaugural Carnival,” she said.
She said the distribution of cheques has already started.
Burris also disclosed that a decision was also taken to waive the rental fee for spaces where Tobago promoters are having events.