Panmen vex with executive

The pan fraternity is up in arms over the way Pan Trinbago’s annual general meeting (AGM) ended at the SWWTU Hall in Port of Spain last Sunday.

Newsday understands that as a member got up to move a motion to set up a special committee to run Panorama 2018, Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz did not wait to hear what the motion was about as executives, assuming it to a call to remove them, started shouting that the AGM is not the place for such a motion.

Also, 60 percent of the membership must sign a petition for a special meeting to deal with removing the executive before its tenure is up. After that, the meeting ended in uproar as Diaz switched the microphones off, got up and left. As Diaz was walking out, he told members the next meeting will be held in three weeks.

Contacted later, Diaz said: “I don’t know about anyone trying to move any motion. What I remember was that there was dialogue from the floor. On the agenda was the Secretary’s Report, the President’s Report and the Financial Statement done by the auditors, presented to the membership.

“In the dialogue we explained to the membership that the auditors were late in presenting their presentation, which caused us to be late in delivering papers at the meeting, because they only finished it late on Friday. So the membership asked that we push that back to a later time, which we agreed.

“Then there were statements made about a resolution. If anybody have to put a resolution before the house, that is not the time and day for it. In the constitution it states that you have to write the Secretary of Pan Trinbago and if you need any changes, 60 percent of the general membership must agree to that resolution and the president then have to call, within three months, a special general meeting to deal with that. So I, having that information for the constitution of Pan Trinbago, I could not entertain anybody asking questions that they purported to ask at the meeting.”

On the question of the outstanding $500 payment that pan players have been asking for, Diaz said: “Neither Pan Trinbago, the National Carnival Commission (NCC) nor the government owe any $500 to the pan movement. I want to be clear on that.”