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Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) is deny­ing al­le­ga­tions made by vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Er­rol “Bal­ly” Bal­lan­tyne that mem­bers of its gen­er­al coun­cil paid them­selves $100,000 each in ex­change for not com­pet­ing in this year’s Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

In an un­dat­ed open let­ter that was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia plat­forms this week, Bal­lan­tyne al­leged that mem­bers of TU­CO’s lead­er­ship had made a back­door fi­nan­cial arrange­ment to side­line them­selves from the com­pe­ti­tion in ex­change for per­son­al gain.