Patrick Arnold was yesterday unseated as president of Pan Trinbago after 12 years at the helm.
The new president is Keith Diaz of WITCO Desperadoes who won the face off with 152 votes from the representatives of more than 70 local steel bands which were present.
Arnold whose nomination was at the centre of controversy in the weeks leading up to yesterday’s event received the nod of approval from only 116 voting members. Byron Serrette of Brimblers in the new vice president.
The results for the other contested positions were still being tallied late yesterday.
Before Arnold’s dethroning he knocked the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) yesterday, saying the State-owned company was not doing any work on the Pan Trinbago Steelpan Headquarters and Pan Information Centre in Trincity.
UDeCOTT had been given the job since 2007. Prior to UDeCOTT’s involvement work at the site had been stalled since 2003, after cost overruns caused the State to step in.
While speaking to over 100 steel pan players and representatives of the local steel pan fraternity before yesterday’s Pan Trinbago central executive elections began, Arnold said the contract for the work at the headquarters had been handed over to UDeCOTT but nothing had been done since earlier this year, when the Chinese workers at the site were moved to complete work at the Southern Terminal of the Piarco Airport, in time for the Fifth Summit of the Americas.
He said, ’The work is not being done by UDeCOTT and the Chinese people.’
Work on the site remains unfinished more than seven years after the job was first commissioned.
Arnold said $4 million was initially given to Pan Trinbago to complete the work, but when the work went unfinished and funds were running low the Government stepped in giving the contract to UDeCOTT.
In 2007, PanTrinbago was also ordered (by a High Court judge) to pay an architectural firm contracted to provide services for the now-abandoned Pan Trinbago headquarters more than $250,000 as payment for outstanding fees, for services the company rendered from June 2002 to August 2003.
The headquarters which can be seen from the Churchill Roosevelt Highway in the Trincity area was supposed to cost just over $3.5 million, but is now stated to carry a $7 million price tag, as the initial designs have been changed.
Arnold told his audience that initially some work was done by the labourers contracted with UDeCOTT but since the workers were moved to complete the old airport (in the first quarter of 2009) nothing has been restarted at the site.
During the event at the Mucurapo Secondary School, in Port of Spain, Arnold said that he has met with the line Minister, (Minister of Culture, Marlene McDonald) on the matter but had not received an exact date as to when the building will be completed.
