No contract has been awarded to maintain the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain, which was built at an estimated cost of $0.5 billion. According to Housing, Planning and the Environment Minister, Emily Dick-Forde, the maintenance contract for the facility had not been finalised. She said it was not determined who would maintain the mega-structure, which included a 1,500-seat performance hall and modern lighting and sound features. Dick-Forde was unable to give an estimate of the cost to maintain the facility.

“The maintenance contract has not been finalised and therefore I would not have any information on the cost to maintain (it) and because that has not been done, you do not know who is going to do it,” Dick-Forde said at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press conference. She added: “Before the maintenance contract is given, (the contractor who constructed the facility) will have to give specific details to whoever is going to do it (maintain the building). “That aspect of it has not been finalised. The Cabinet did agree that the UTT will oversee that aspect, not that they will do it, but that will be overseen by them.”

The Port-of-Spain National Academy for the Performing Arts was one of two facilities built following a bilateral agreement between the Governments of the People's Republic of China and Trinidad and Tobago. It was constructed by the Shanghai Construction Group (SCG). In an interview with T&T Guardian news editor Robert Alonzo last week in Shanghai, China, SCG’s president of Overseas Business, Tong Ji Sheng, said the buildings his company constructed in Trinidad and Tobago needed to be maintained every five years to remain fully-functional.

At its highest point, the building rises up to 100 feet with its architectural design fashioned after the National Flower of Trinidad and Tobago, the Chaconia. Among the concerns raised about the facility included the size of its main theatre, which was reported to be too large for hosting local theatre productions by members of the National Drama Association. Dick-Forde said smaller facilities were included in the classroom area of the academy. She said: “We have asked our communications person to contact them (the National Drama Association) and we will be taking them in to see the smaller spaces that will satisfy what they call a more intimate space for theatre.”