Burris: 95 per cent of Heritage Festival suppliers paid

THA Secretary of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation Tashia Burris claims 95 per cent of the contractors who supplied goods and services for last year’s Tobago Heritage Festival have been paid.

She was responding to a question about the issue during the post executive council media briefing at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex on April 17.

Burris said, “I know there has been a lot of public commentary about what happened with the Heritage Festival last year. And I remember coming off my sick bed in January and giving an assurance that the payments will be made.”

On that occasion, she said her statements were made based on information provided to her by the then administrator and accounting officer in charge at the division.

“What subsequently happened was that in the process of us making those payments, there were some discrepancies that were identified and, therefore, the initial deadline could not have been met and the payments had to be looked at and those invoices had to undergo a process of verification.”

Burris added, “What I can say at this point is that most of the suppliers have been paid. In fact, 95 per cent of the suppliers have been paid. We only have one group outstanding and they are only outstanding because they had to provide a document that was only submitted to the division last week in my absence.

“So once that is checked off and everything is okay then that final group will be paid. By that time, all of the outstanding payments from the heritage festival should have been taken care of.”

Burris also responded to a question about the budget for this year’s October carnival, which, she said, will be private-sector driven.

She said the budget will be determined by the central planning committee that was set up to steer the process

“Part of their work is to quantify what that possible budget will look like. The idea is that every year the budget is going to decrease because we are going to get more and more private sector investment and sponsorship coming in.

“So I am not at a place where I can give an idea what that budget will look like. But what I can say is that we have already started the conversation with our private sector partners who have expressed and interest in coming on board to support the carnival; and when they have quantified what their support can look like, then the THA will have an idea of what we would have to put out to ensure that the event comes off seamlessly.”