Officials discuss hosting second Carnival in TT this year

Tobago: Minister of the Arts and Multi-Culturalism Winston Peters says a decision will be made by the end of the month on whether a second Carnival will be held on the island of  Tobago in October, moments after he presented a proposal for the Tobago Carnival to the Chief Secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly, Orville London.

The minister says technical teams have been put in place by both sides to try to iron out the chinks ahead of a follow-up meeting on April 28th.

Minister Peters described the meeting as very cordial and professional. The two had previously met on February 28th to discuss the issue.

London also told reporters that the meeting was very productive. He added that it was agreed that from a Tobago perspective there was a trough in the tourism sector between early September and the end of November and that the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), the Tourism Development Corporation and the Government generally have been working to see how they address it.

He said it was also agreed that one of the ways to treat with it is to have various types of activities and various types of cultural activities.

Mr london said the Tobago sub committee supported by him had indicated that there were some concerns, among them were the issues of the branding of Tobago, the kinds of levels of inconvenience and the problems and challenges of security.

He said the ministry brought a proposal of the type of carnival activity that they would like to see for the Tobago Carnival and because it was the first time the THA team was seeing this proposal it was decided a joint technical team from the THA and the ministry meet in trinidad to see whether there can be a marriage between the proposals put forward and the concerns raised by the assembly.

He said coming out of that meeting a decision will be made if there was to be an activity, what type of activity or activities it would be and the timing of that activity both in relationship to the month and the date.