Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed yes­ter­day over a re­port­ed $750,000 pay­ment to top ex­ec­u­tives of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO).

The is­sue sparked a tense meet­ing at the Bel­mont Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where ca­lyp­so­ni­ans de­mand­ed a full ex­pla­na­tion from TU­CO pres­i­dent Ains­ley King about the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fi­nan­cial prac­tices.

At the meet­ing, mem­bers pre­sent­ed a doc­u­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 5, 2024, de­tail­ing “re­im­burse­ments” that in­clud­ed $350,000 to King, $100,000 each to the pres­i­dent, vice pres­i­dent, and gen­er­al sec­re­tary, $100,000 to the trea­sur­er, and $60,000 to the as­sis­tant trea­sur­er.

Fac­ing es­ca­lat­ing crit­i­cism over these pay­outs and the re­cent dis­missal of a long-serv­ing staff mem­ber up­on reach­ing manda­to­ry re­tire­ment age, King re­mained de­fi­ant.

“I am not apol­o­gis­ing for any­thing,” King told Guardian Me­dia. “We are about build­ing, and TU­CO is go­ing to rise. This will not de­ter us from do­ing what is right.”

The con­tro­ver­sy deep­ened when a TU­CO of­fice work­er was sent home on re­tire­ment grounds, spark­ing ques­tions about staff treat­ment amid hefty com­pen­sa­tion for ex­ec­u­tives. King dis­missed ac­cu­sa­tions of im­pro­pri­ety, as­sert­ing that the com­pen­sa­tion sys­tem had been long es­tab­lished.

“That arrange­ment ex­ist­ed three pres­i­dents ago,” he ex­plained. “There has been a pol­i­cy for years where se­nior ex­ec­u­tives were com­pen­sat­ed as a means of lim­it­ing com­pe­ti­tion with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. We in­her­it­ed a body laden with over $7 mil­lion in debt and have been work­ing re­lent­less­ly to push for­ward.”

Ca­lyp­son­ian Roger “Body­guard” Mo­hammed ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over the al­leged pay­outs. “If these fig­ures are ac­cu­rate, we’re talk­ing about near­ly a mil­lion dol­lars that could have gone to sup­port mem­bers in need,” he said. “Some TU­CO mem­bers are strug­gling to buy school­books and uni­forms for their chil­dren. This is about adding re­al val­ue to the mem­ber­ship, not just qual­i­fy­ing for Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta or Di­manche Gras.”

The group dis­closed plans to seek le­gal ad­vice be­fore de­cid­ing on fur­ther ac­tion, cit­ing a cul­ture of fear among mem­bers who hes­i­tate to speak out over con­cerns it might jeop­ar­dise their com­pe­ti­tion prospects.

Mo­hammed crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as a “nar­row-mind­ed” at­ti­tude with­in TU­CO, where mem­bers equate suc­cess sole­ly with reach­ing Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta fi­nals.

“Go­ing for­ward, we will hold the ex­ec­u­tive ac­count­able and end the dis­re­spect and lack of con­sul­ta­tion with the mem­ber­ship,” he vowed.

King de­fend­ed his own com­pen­sa­tion, call­ing it re­im­burse­ment for per­son­al funds spent af­ter re­lo­cat­ing to Trinidad to as­sume the pres­i­den­cy.

“I cov­ered rent, util­i­ties, and op­er­a­tional costs out of my own pock­et, and was re­im­bursed ac­cord­ing­ly,” he said. “This is be­ing mis­rep­re­sent­ed.”

For­mer TU­CO ex­ec­u­tive and ca­lyp­son­ian Er­rol “Bal­ly” Bal­lan­tyne con­demned the pay­ments, say­ing they un­der­mine con­fi­dence in TU­CO’s lead­er­ship.

“This sends the wrong mes­sage. An or­gan­i­sa­tion that rep­re­sents our coun­try’s cul­ture must be trans­par­ent—there is no al­ter­na­tive,” Bal­lan­tyne said.

He re­vealed he had pri­vate­ly sought con­fir­ma­tion of the doc­u­ment’s au­then­tic­i­ty from TU­CO’s ex­ec­u­tive since May 1, 2025, but was ig­nored for over three months.

“We are ask­ing straight­for­ward ques­tions, not mak­ing un­found­ed al­le­ga­tions,” he said. “Mem­bers have the right un­der Ar­ti­cle 7C of TU­CO’s con­sti­tu­tion to ex­am­ine the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ac­counts.”

Bal­lan­tyne an­nounced that a for­mal let­ter re­quest­ing ac­cess to TU­CO’s fi­nan­cial records will be sent to the gen­er­al sec­re­tary, with copies to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.

King at­trib­uted the up­roar to the forth­com­ing elec­tions.

“This is elec­tion sea­son, and some will say and do any­thing to dis­cred­it the lead­er­ship,” he said. “My fo­cus re­mains on the work, not the noise. The mem­bers will de­cide at the bal­lot box whether we con­tin­ue the progress or re­vert to the chaos we in­her­it­ed.”

He high­light­ed re­forms un­der his watch, in­clud­ing strict en­force­ment of re­tire­ment poli­cies, the es­tab­lish­ment of a Hu­man Re­sources com­mit­tee, and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­sa­tion.

“We are not re­turn­ing to dis­or­der. I was elect­ed to lead, and I will do so—with­out apol­o­gy,” King con­clud­ed.