Ramona: Where are Shamfa’s arrival figures from?

COUVA North MP Ramona Ramdial, in a statement yesterday, challenged Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe to say where she got her recently-stated figures on tourist arrivals, which Ramdial contrasted with data from a group calling itself TDC Employees Speak.

Ramdial said at last week Wednesday’s sitting of Parliament, Cudjoe was asked an oral question on the number of tourist arrivals to TT for January to February for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

However Ramdial said Cudjoe’s respective replies of 82,114, 78,672 and 74,191 visitors greatly exceeded the TDC Employees Speak tourist figures for Carnival 2016 and 2017 of 35,959 and 37,448. Ramdial said the group’s figures are usually taken from the CSO and Immigration Department for a 19-day period leading up to and including Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

Questioning the accuracy of Cudjoe’s data, Ramdial said, “I therefore call on Minister Cudjoe to firstly identify the source of her stated annual statistics for tourist arrivals, secondly to give the accurate figures to the public as the population deserves the truth and thirdly to apologise to the Parliament and to the public if the figures quoted by the minister are in fact inaccurate.”