Shal­iza Has­sanali

Chi­nese labour­ers were work­ing fever­ish­ly on the con­struc­tion of a mas­sive three storey build­ing on the com­pound of the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fi­cial res­i­dence and Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, last week. The build­ing was be­ing built on the north­ern side of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre. A few weeks ago, the area which the new build­ing oc­cu­pies, was a car­pet of lush green lawn with a smat­ter­ing of or­na­men­tals. Last Thurs­day, dur­ing the post Cab­i­net press brief­ing, work was con­tin­u­ing apace on the fa­cil­i­ty.

Scores of Chi­nese work­ers, dressed in blue over­alls, were perched on scaf­fold­ings as they plas­tered the out­er walls. The boom of a crane hov­ered over­head.

At­tempts at get­ting an­swers on the pur­pose of the struc­ture have proven fu­tile. Yes­ter­day, when asked to shed some light on the build­ing, In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal re­spond­ed: "That would have to come from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. I am not in a po­si­tion, at this time as we speak, to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion that you re­quire." Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Spe­cial­ist in the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Paige de Leon she could not re­spond on the is­sue last Thurs­day. "Un­for­tu­nate­ly I can't."

Pressed fur­ther for an­swers, de Leon replied: "I can't be­cause I am not in a po­si­tion to do that, be­cause I hon­est­ly don't have the ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion to give you. "I would hate to tell you some­thing wrong to print." De Leon promised that she would be able to pro­vide some an­swers. How­ev­er, calls to her cell phone went unan­swered last Fri­day and yes­ter­day. Last Sep­tem­ber, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne ad­mit­ted that the cost of the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence and Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre had in­creased from $148 mil­lion to $175.3 mil­lion.