Govt apologises to Helon for audio drop

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris has pushed back against mount­ing crit­i­cism fol­low­ing the au­dio dis­rup­tion that af­fect­ed for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis dur­ing Sun­day’s Di­manche Gras show, de­clar­ing that the gov­ern­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is not afraid of cri­tique.

The in­ci­dent, which saw Fran­cis’ au­dio cut mid-per­for­mance dur­ing his ren­di­tion of Doh For­get, trig­gered back­lash from cul­tur­al groups, po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and mem­bers of the pub­lic, with some al­leg­ing cen­sor­ship. But speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Mor­ris dis­missed those claims and de­fend­ed both the Gov­ern­ment and the state broad­cast­er TTT.

“The UNC has re­ceived bash­ing from ca­lyp­so­ni­ans for over 20 to 25 years. There is no need to mute a mic to not hear what he has to say. This par­ty and this Prime Min­is­ter and leader has stood up to take ridicule, to take bash­ing from many peo­ple in so­ci­ety,” Mor­ris said.

In a re­mark that ap­peared aimed at the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Mor­ris added: “We are not the last ad­min­is­tra­tion who ran from the coun­try. We will ac­cept the crit­i­cism, we will work hard.”

While of­fer­ing an apol­o­gy to Fran­cis for the dis­rup­tion, Mor­ris re­ject­ed calls by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee and oth­er sec­tors of so­ci­ety for an in­de­pen­dent probe in­to the mat­ter.

“When the is­sue oc­curred, we con­tact­ed the CEO. The CEO and tech­ni­cal team pro­vid­ed a re­port on the is­sue and for those call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this, the staff at TTT Lim­it­ed are in­de­pen­dent. They weren’t hired by the UNC, we met them there and we will not al­low peo­ple to tar­nish the staff at TTT, first­ly. There is no need for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­cause the team at TTT, we met there, and they pro­vid­ed that re­port.”

Mor­ris not­ed that tech­ni­cal fail­ures are not un­prece­dent­ed. He ref­er­enced a sim­i­lar au­dio cut in 2024 when then Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pe­ri­enced an in­ter­rup­tion while speak­ing at Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas, un­der­scor­ing his point that such in­ci­dents are not po­lit­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns raised about state­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter in re­sponse to the con­tro­ver­sy, Mor­ris said her com­ments had been mis­char­ac­terised.

“In terms of their com­ments against the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter did not say ca­lyp­so was di­vi­sive. The Prime Min­is­ter did not con­demn ca­lyp­so. Ca­lyp­so is part of our na­tion­al his­to­ry, her­itage and pat­ri­mo­ny and I am proud of ca­lyp­so. But the Prime Min­is­ter high­light­ed the fact that at times, there have been is­sues that have been di­vi­sive — not ca­lyp­so it­self but some of the artistes. We stand with the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment.”

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to re­lease the Dante net­work log to sup­port its claim that the in­ter­rup­tion was not de­lib­er­ate, Mor­ris was un­equiv­o­cal.

“We have put it out as a Dante router is­sue. That is­sue is now dead.”