The board of Laven­tille Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra has moved to for­mal­ly dis­tance the or­gan­i­sa­tion from pub­lic state­ments made by board mem­ber, Sen­a­tor David Nakhid, trig­ger­ing a pub­lic dis­pute that has now es­ca­lat­ed to le­gal ac­tion.

Board chair­man Oronde Lu­mum­ba con­firmed yes­ter­day that the or­gan­i­sa­tion took the de­ci­sion, af­ter what he de­scribed as re­peat­ed unau­tho­rised pub­lic com­ments by Nakhid ref­er­enc­ing his po­lit­i­cal back­ground and in­clud­ing at­tacks on Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lu­mum­ba said be­cause Nakhid is a sit­ting board mem­ber and ref­er­enced Des­per­a­does by name, mem­bers of the pub­lic had in­cor­rect­ly as­so­ci­at­ed his state­ments with the or­ches­tra.