Barry’s ‘performance’ at Hyatt fete sparks controversy

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is laugh­ing off Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s ques­tion­able be­hav­iour at a Car­ni­val fete on Wednes­day night.

A night of pre­mi­um drinks and so­ca left Padarath with a mas­sive po­lit­i­cal hang­over, af­ter he be­came the sub­ject of crit­i­cism and ridicule over a mo­ment on stage at the Hy­att Lime all-in­clu­sive fete at the Hy­att Re­gency.

Ac­cord­ing to sources at the event, Padarath stormed the stage, as he was not in­vit­ed to do so by fete of­fi­cials. Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that Padarath was still told po­lit­i­cal state­ments were against the fete’s pol­i­cy, yet dis­re­gard­ed this as he went on to an­nounce Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John as the fete’s founder.

While dis­clos­ing this in­for­ma­tion, in be­tween try­ing to in­vite John on stage and to sing lines of so­ca star Machel Mon­tano’s Gih Dem Per­for­mance, how­ev­er, some pa­trons open­ly booed Padarath. Padarath even­tu­al­ly left the stage with some urg­ing from the em­cee.

The fete’s man­age­ment team was ex­treme­ly up­set by his ac­tions, with one staff mem­ber moved to tears, ac­cord­ing to the source.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day said she found Padarath’s ac­tion hi­lar­i­ous.

“I saw the video, I thought his ter­ri­ble singing was hi­lar­i­ous. It’s Car­ni­val, en­joy your­selves safe­ly,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in re­sponse to whether she felt Padarath’s be­hav­iour, days af­ter she ad­vised mas­quer­aders not to em­bar­rass them­selves, was re­spon­si­ble.

While a dai­ly news­pa­per re­port­ed that Padarath de­nied be­ing in­tox­i­cat­ed, scores of so­cial me­dia users and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers took to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day to con­demn his be­hav­iour.

Both Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les and St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ac­cus­ing him of be­ing out of place.

Gon­za­les said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go, this is what you all have serv­ing in high of­fice in this coun­try. A to­tal em­bar­rass­ment, an in­dig­ni­ty and blot to our moral con­science! Imag­ine if a PNM Min­is­ter of Govt con­duct­ed them­selves like this?? What many of you would have said??”

He added, “The PNM served 10 years in gov­ern­ment. Nev­er have I seen one min­is­ter con­duct­ing them­selves in such dis­gust­ing drunk­en man­ner.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “Well, I guess Hy­att Lime is now the UNC’s Car­ni­val Fete at tax­pay­ers’ ex­pense. Ut­ter­ly ridicu­lous! Shame­ful, out of place, drunk­en be­hav­iour from Bar­ry Padarath. A to­tal em­bar­rass­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s East MP Stu­art Young al­so called for Padarath to be re­moved from of­fice, call­ing his be­hav­iour at the fete vul­gar.

Young said, “The cur­rent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar cab­i­net is the worst cab­i­net that Trinidad and To­ba­go has ever been sub­ject­ed to. The lev­el of in­com­pe­tence, im­ma­tu­ri­ty, ig­no­rance and hubris is stag­ger­ing. What we have been ex­posed to over the past few weeks, cul­mi­nat­ing with pho­tos and videos from one of the most ex­pen­sive fetes for the Car­ni­val sea­son, the Hy­att Lime fete last night, is a com­plete dis­re­gard and the ut­most dis­re­spect for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Bar­ry Padarath’s vul­gar dis­play of im­ma­tu­ri­ty and abuse of pub­lic of­fice, along with oth­er mem­bers of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Cab­i­net, must be jux­ta­posed against the con­text of the UNC’s fir­ing of over 40,000 work­ers from CEPEP, URP, re­for­esta­tion, con­tract po­si­tions at WASA, T&TEC, TSTT (all of which fall un­der Padarath), con­tract po­si­tions at HDC and many oth­er state en­ter­pris­es and min­istries. Some of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens have been fired by this UNC gov­ern­ment and are strug­gling to sur­vive whilst these min­is­ters par­ty, get drunk and rub their tem­porar­i­ly held of­fices in the faces of the na­tion.”

He added, “So whilst peo­ple are suf­fer­ing and try­ing to sur­vive, you have Padarath mount­ing a stage at a fete where a tick­et costs thou­sands of dol­lars, drunk and scream­ing in­to a mi­cro­phone. He and his min­is­te­r­i­al col­leagues who par­tied away last night in drunk­en stu­por are not on­ly an em­bar­rass­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go, out of touch with the suf­fer­ing of those they have pun­ished and fired but al­so they are a clear and present dan­ger to our coun­try’s econ­o­my and sur­vival. I con­demn the vul­gar abuse of of­fice by the Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar cab­i­net mem­bers and call up­on her to im­me­di­ate­ly re­move all of these min­is­ters who have been bring­ing our coun­try in­to dis­re­pute be­fore it is too late...”

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day al­so slammed the min­is­ter’s con­duct.

Pan­day said, “What the coun­try wit­nessed last night was not about what was said, where it was said or the boo­ing. Trinidad and To­ba­go has grown ac­cus­tomed to the ar­ro­gance and end­less po­lit­i­cal bab­ble that spills from the mouths of those in of­fice. Noth­ing about that shocked any­one. What peo­ple saw sim­ply con­firmed what they have been feel­ing for months, how com­plete­ly out of touch this Gov­ern­ment has be­come. While fam­i­lies are stretch­ing gro­ceries, choos­ing be­tween rent and elec­tric­i­ty bills and fight­ing to keep their small busi­ness­es alive, some min­is­ters are mak­ing the Car­ni­val fete cir­cuit like celebri­ties on tour. Bold, care­free and vis­i­bly de­tached from the hard­ship un­fold­ing across the coun­try.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Padarath for a re­sponse to the crit­i­cisms but up to press time there was no re­sponse.

Padarath al­so came un­der fire for sug­gest­ing that Min­is­ter John found­ed Hy­att Lime.

Ac­cord­ing to event man­ag­er Collin Abra­ham, he and his wife, Kel­ly, were re­spon­si­ble for con­cep­tu­al­is­ing and pro­duc­ing the event.

Abra­ham said, “What is this non­sense and fool­ish­ness I’m hear­ing that this one and that one start­ed LIME at the Hy­att. Y’all can­not be se­ri­ous and at­tempt to rewrite his­to­ry, that event was con­cep­tu­alised, de­signed and pro­duced by yours tru­ly with my wife Kel­ly Abra­ham in West Or­ange New Jer­sey in the base­ment of our home, in my LIME GREEN of­fice, along with fam­i­ly & die-hard friends… Don’t get it twist­ed, that’s the gen­e­sis of the event, the foun­da­tion in 2010 in­to 2011. I’ve nev­er spo­ken pub­licly about this and the years lead­ing up to my de­par­ture, which was mired in cor­po­rate greed and mon­ey grab.”

John did not com­ment on Padarath’s be­hav­iour when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, but said she played a role in the ap­proval of the event when the con­cept was con­sid­ered un­der UDe­COTT in 2011.

John said, “The con­cept was put for­ward for con­sid­er­a­tion to the board of UDe­COTT in 2011 by then Hy­att’s MD, Rus­sel George. We held sev­er­al dis­cus­sions around that, then ap­proved the event to move for­ward in its in­au­gur­al year. Each year, the same process took place un­til my ex­it from UDe­COTT in 2015.”

Padarath was al­so crit­i­cised for his de­ci­sion to de­liv­er a po­lit­i­cal mes­sage at a fete.

For­mer Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in­de­pen­dent can­di­date Ariel Saun­ders said, “The more con­se­quen­tial lapse was a fail­ure of sit­u­a­tion­al judge­ment in his de­ci­sion to de­liv­er a po­lit­i­cal­ly toned mes­sage at a pre­mi­um, com­mer­cial­ly brand­ed, broad­ly in­clu­sive fete where the so­cial con­tract is clear and the bound­aries be­tween gov­er­nance and par­ti­san-ness are ex­pect­ed to be re­spect­ed. When an of­fice hold­er, and a se­nior one, can­not cal­i­brate their tone, con­tent and con­text, and in­stead de­faults to par­ti­san sig­nalling in a space de­signed to be po­lit­i­cal­ly neu­tral, it should raise a deep­er con­cern about how that in­di­vid­ual con­cep­tu­alis­es pub­lic en­gage­ment and, more im­por­tant­ly, how in­sep­a­ra­ble pol­i­tics ap­pears to be from his own sense of pres­ence.”