Resh­ma Ra­goonath

One year af­ter it was shut down, the $500 mil­lion Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) still re­mains closed.

And, ac­cord­ing to an en­gi­neer­ing ex­pert, re­pairs could cost the Gov­ern­ment mil­lions to re­pair.

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas has ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment and frus­tra­tion over the clo­sure of the fa­cil­i­ty.

Cab­i­net was ex­pect­ed to make a de­ci­sion on how to treat with the litany of struc­tur­al faults and fail­ures at the Port-of-Spain fa­cil­i­ty.

Last April, Na­pa was shut down af­ter it was deemed un­safe by the Oc­cu�pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion (Os­ha.)

Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer­ing re­port has been sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net for re­view and cites some se­ri­ous flaws, among them weld­ing bolt fail­ures, re­quir­ing ur­gent at­ten­tion.

Dou­glas con­firmed that an en­gi­neer­ing eval­u­a­tion has been done on Na­pa and it has been sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net.

The min­is­ter re­fused to di­vulge the find­ings of the re­port.

"I want­ed the Cab­i­net to get a com­plete eye of the re­port and then I would make a com­plete state­ment. I do not want to pre­empt the de­ci­sion of the Cab­i­net..." he said.

He could not say how much the re­pairs could cost.

Na­pa cor­doned off

Na­pa, which was con­struct­ed by Chi­nese firm Shang­hai Con­struc­tion, un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment-led regime and for­mer­ly opened in 2010, re­mains a safe­ty is­sue. At present, the fa­cil­i­ty is cor­doned off by gal­vanised sheets and cau­tion tape.

Dou­glas said he was "very dis­ap­point­ed" that the fa­cil­i­ty can­not be used.

"It is quite sad and frus­trat­ing to have a fa­cil­i­ty like this sit­ting around that we are un­able to use to the max be­cause of those sig­nif­i­cant flaws that are re­lat­ed to de­sign and all kinds of struc­tur­al prob­lems," the min­is­ter lament­ed.

He said a lot of the is­sues at the fa­cil­i­ty were re­lat­ed to "im­prop­er project over­sight in the last ad­min­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ment as it re­lates to the build­ing of these fa­cil­i­ties (Na­pa and the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts.)"

Dou­glas said what makes the sit­u­a­tion more dif­fi­cult was the fact that it was con­struct­ed not on­ly as an au­di­to­ri­um, but an acad­e­my for the teach­ing mod­ules re­lat­ed to the arts and the cul­ture in­dus­try.

Dou­glas said the min­istry was work­ing with Shang­hai to up­grade the build­ing.

How­ev­er, he said, "There are still more very sig­nif­i­cant and de­tailed is­sues that has to be ad­dressed and I would leave that up to the cab­i­net de­cide that."

Build­ing code com­ing–Mooni­lal

The struc­tur­al faults found in Na­pa high­lights the need for a build­ing code and a pre­sid­ing au­thor­i­ty to en­sure its en­force­ment.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Ude­cott, the state agency that presided over the project, said he has not made any sug­ges­tions to Cab­i­net re­gard­ing Na­pa, since that fa­cil­i­ty falls un­der Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal said T&T would be get­ting build­ing code to deal with small struc­tures with­in a cou­ple of days. He said the na­tion­al build­ing code com­mit­tee, which is led by chair­man Shyankaran Lal­la, has been work­ing "very hard over the last cou­ple of years" on the build­ing code.

"We are on the verge now of sign­ing off with the na­tion­al agen­cies con­cern­ing a uni­form code. We ex­pect that will be done with­in a few days. We have fund­ing for the code com­mit­tee, and we al­so have fund­ing for the in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies as­sist­ing with that, so fund­ing is in place," the min­is­ter as­sured.