Morris: Stop making excuses for THA jokers

A bunch of jokers.

This was how THA Minority Leader Kelvon Morris described the current Farley-led THA administration as he lamented the absence of a budget for the October 25-27 carnival.

In a Facebook livestream on October 10, Morris said, "One of the thing that is happening in this Tobago space at this time is that we continue to make excuses for these jokers.

"We know that they are incompetent, we watch them mismanage the island but yet they are persons who for some reason – because they like the party that these jokers represent – they basically hide their fault and they blame everybody else...That is the reality."

He said Secretary of Tourism Tashia Burris has been unable to attract investors to Tobago.

"You see them going out to WTM (World Trade Market) and ITB (Berlin trade show) and all of that. The reason why they're suppose to go to these places is to go with a plan and convince people that Tobago is a destination that is worth your investment.

"If they are able to successfully make that case, then what you would see coming into the space are airlines such as Jet Blue, American Airlines, Air Canada, but that does not exist so that means that they have failed."

Additionally, he blamed poor planning and bad management for the absence of a carnival budget. He said the date was announced months ago, but clearly no work was done in that time to ensure a successful festival.

“Your guess is as good as mine – because outside of what we’ve seen, coming down to the very end now, where we have a bus going around Tobago – and perhaps it went around Trinidad sometime in September – that is as much as we’ve seen in direct marketing of the carnival.”

He also asked about funding, saying a budget is very important in any planning process.

“Without a budget, what that indicates is that you do not have a plan.”

He said that should have been done from November/ December into early January, as by now the THA should have had a clear idea of how much it would cost to hold the October carnival.

He said once the cost is identified, including marketing, it would have gone into the implementation stage executing all the elements to ensure the event is successful.

“After their third year, they are going about this carnival without a plan. They are still going about this carnival by vaps.

"If that isn’t indicative of poor leadership and poor management, I do not know what it is.

As a result, he said: “We are hearing the cries across the sector. Bandleaders are complaining they can’t properly plan because if they do not know what their allocation is going to be out of whatever the budget is, they are restricted to make decisions."

He said if there is no budget at this time, the THA needs to indicate what it has been spending from on carnival-related events.

Newsday tried to contact Burris, but all calls and messages to her cellphone went unanswered.