Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is now look­ing for a new head­quar­ters af­ter be­ing served no­tice to leave the place its has called home for the past 27 years.

The All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers' Trade Union (AT­GW­TU) has giv­en the UNC un­til the end of this month to pack its bags and move out of the his­tor­i­cal Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va.

Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the par­ty is un­able to pay a month­ly rental fee of $25,000. Par­ty chair­man David Lee, in a re­lease said the UNC said the union was re­luc­tant to pro­vide the UNC with a long-term lease and sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cat­ed its wish for the UNC to leave the premis­es with­out cause.

The com­plex had pre­vi­ous­ly served as head­quar­ters to the Unit­ed Labour Front led by Bas­deo Pan­day.

Luck­i­ly, for­mer prime min­is­ter Pan­day who lost lead­er­ship in 2010 has been al­lowed to con­tin­ue oc­cu­py­ing his space.

Sun­day Guardian was told that Pan­day had earned the right to stay at Rien­zi Com­plex for as long as he want­ed to have an of­fice there.

The Bas­deo Pan­day Foun­da­tion, of which Pan­day is chair­man, has been housed at the Rien­zi Colpex since its in­cep­tion in 2010.

Sources said a no­tice of evic­tion was served about two weeks ago by the union who is the land­lord and that sev­er­al let­ters had al­so been sent re­quest­ing meet­ings to ne­go­ti­ate.

"The par­ty was pay­ing rental fee of $2,500 up to 2012 but that in­creased to $12,000. Af­ter four years, the union in­creased to $25,000 this year but it seems the UNC is un­able to pay that sum," the source said.

Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the AT­GW­TU Nir­van Ma­haraj yes­ter­day said he had no com­ments on the mat­ter.

In Oc­to­ber last year Ma­haraj formed his own po­lit­i­cal par­ty - the Na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty As­sem­bly (NSA) whose head­quar­ters are at the Rien­zi Com­plex.

The NSA is made up of AT­GW­TU mem­bers and for­mer Ca­roni work­ers.

Rien­zi Com­plex is owned by the union and not the UNC and as such, the UNC has to abide by the union's rules.

Rien­zi Com­plex was named af­ter for­mer labour leader Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi. He was the founder of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union and the then All Trinidad Sug­ar Es­tates and Fac­to­ry Work­ers Union. Pan­day lat­er served as pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the AT­GW­TU from 1973 to 1995. It was at that lo­ca­tion, in the bow­els of the sug­ar­cane move­ment that the UNC's first and sec­ond prime min­is­ters held their vic­to­ry speech­es.

The com­plex has al­so held many po­lit­i­cal ral­lies, func­tions, screen­ings and oth­er par­ty events.

On Fri­day, the launch for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions screen­ing was held at the Siparia Mar­ket Com­plex, an event that is nor­mal­ly held at Rien­zi Com­plex.

Not po­lit­i­cal

Sun­day Guardian was yes­ter­day in­formed that since 2011 the union tried to hold ne­go­ti­a­tions with the UNC but "un­for­tu­nate­ly, they did not meet with us and ba­si­cal­ly let it lapse. They did not even both­er to meet with us and talk about the terms and con­di­tions and so on. The UNC chair­man (David Lee) and MP for Cou­va South (Rudy In­dars­ingh) met for a dis­cus­sion a few weeks ago and it seemed that the new rental fee could not be met by the par­ty."

In­dars­ingh served as the pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the AT­GW­TU from 1999 to 2012 be­fore he was re­placed by Ma­haraj.

The source said there had al­ways been a "par­tic­u­lar re­la­tion­ship" with the po­lit­i­cal par­ty be­cause of the his­tor­i­cal dy­nam­ics and that the mat­ter was a long out­stand­ing is­sue in which the UNC failed to meet and ne­go­ti­ate with the union.

"By not hav­ing a lease arrange­ment they are ac­tu­al­ly month to month ten­ants in law so now we have a sit­u­a­tion where we in­sti­tut­ed new terms and con­di­tions and it seems they are able to meet them."

The let­ter sent ear­li­er this month in­di­cat­ed that fail­ure to agree with the union's terms and con­di­tions "we would have no choice but to ask them to give up the premis­es by Ju­ly 31."

Hint­ing at in­grat­i­tude, the source said: "The great­est sin a per­son can com­mit is to show in­grat­i­tude or to take the ones clos­est to them for grant­ed. It is not a po­lit­i­cal is­sue. Pol­i­tics has noth­ing to with it. This is a land­lord/ten­ant is­sue and at the end of the day the eco­nom­ics of the world has changed. What was of­fered in the past can longer be of­fered now."

Sun­day Guardian was told that the UNC paid a "flat $12,000" and nev­er had to pay for wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty or even toi­let pa­per.

Warn­er sad

The UNC's re­lease con­firmed that the par­ty was asked to va­cate Rien­zi Com­plex and that the rental fee was in­creased to $25,000.

It said: "To date the UNC has paid all rentals for the use of the premis­es in­clud­ing the in­creased rental. It is im­por­tant to note that the in­creased rent was ac­com­pa­nied by the union im­ple­ment­ing a month to month agree­ment with the par­ty."

Chair­man Lee said he sought to un­der­take ne­go­ti­a­tions with the union by meet­ing with Ma­haraj to reach an agree­ment ben­e­fi­cial to both par­ties but this proved to be un­suc­cess­ful.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to calls on her mo­bile or text mes­sages, whiles calls to Rudy In­dars­ingh's phone went unan­swered.

For­mer UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er who was elect­ed in 2007 and stepped down in April 2013 yes­ter­day said he felt very sad.

He said Rien­zi was a place Pan­day had and it was there the UNC was born.

Warn­er said peo­ple like Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, John Humphrey and Kelvin Ram­nath passed through Rien­zi.

"And the fact that they have been evict­ed, not moved, they have been evict­ed with no place to go is a very sad day in­deed.

"It is a sad day for pol­i­tics and a sad day for the Op­po­si­tion. I wish times were dif­fer­ent but then again what you plant is what you reap," warn­er added.