THE EDITOR: A few years ago there was an attempt to build a stage over the waves at Maracas. Good sense prevailed and the scheme was abandoned. Exciting to be prancing and dancing above the rolling waves but downright dangerous to life and limb, never mind the brain-dead idea to mess with climate change and soil erosion.

Fast forward to tiny Tobago desperate to earn some money with global tourism suffering the effects of the covid19 pandemic. To actually start building an over-the-ocean-waves party stage is downright dangerous and ill-advised. Matters not who is the contractor or where he/she is from. Forget about the politics about whose political ego is being stroked or offended. Coastal erosion is alive and well because of climate change.

The entire exercise should not have been contemplated without due diligence with the Environmental Management Authority (EMA). Tobago business suffers from there only being 60,000 citizens living there. The intention is to entice thousands of party visitors for a first attempt at carnival in October. But who gets billed for the maintenance?

There is no guarantee the stage will not collapse into the sea. Ask the suffering people who live near the Caroni River, whose shoreline is practically melting away because of natural soil erosion.

Now along comes the carnival in Tobago idea to build a stage in the sea. Will the taxpayers of Trinidad have to cough up billions of dollars in maintenance to stroke Tobagonians’ political egos?

Will the October carnival even generate enough money to validate a stage in the sea?

Europe is poised to go into financial recession because of the war in Ukraine, among other financial and political constraints. European tourism may decline even further. There is a real world with real problems out there in foreign but it is like Tobago people are off on a high. Why? And with whose money?

So, how many partygoers from Trinidad are needed to keep the Rockley Bay stage financially afloat? Sixty thousand every year? Now and forever?

LYNETTE JOSEPH

Diego Martin