Richard Lord

White­hall, which was pre­vi­ous­ly used as the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, is to be con­vert­ed in­to a pro­to­col house for vis­it­ing heads of state and gov­ern­ment. This is one of the pro­vi­sions of the 2009/2010 bud­get, which is con­tained in the Sup­ple­men­tary Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme 2010.

Lo­cat­ed at the Queen's Park West, White­hall is one of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain. It was used as the of­fice of the coun­try's first and sec­ond Prime Min­is­ters Dr Er­ic Williams and George Cham­bers as well as for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day. It was al­so used as the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning in an ear­li­er term.

No fur­ther de­tails were giv­en about the project. Mean­while work is con­tin­u­ing on the restora­tion of Par­lia­ment's Red House build­ing.

The Sup­ple­men­tary Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme for 2010 con­firms this pro­posed de­vel­op­ment. To date, the sum of $67 mil­lion has been spent on the Red House project.