Ke­jan Haynes

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­tin­ues to de­fend his de­ci­sions to pre­serve the na­tion’s mon­u­ments and build­ings, say­ing those who see the na­tion’s his­to­ry through art can be­come bet­ter cit­i­zens.

Speak­ing dur­ing the launch of “A Na­tion­al Trea­sure: The Cen­tral Bank Col­lec­tion at 60” at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Row­ley said while grow­ing up, he was taught the val­ue of sav­ing mon­ey, which he said he took in­to his tenure as Prime Min­is­ter. He said no mat­ter the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, there should al­ways be some­thing put away to save na­tion­al trea­sures.

“If Kil­lar­ney Cas­tle col­laps­es, and if White­hall is not pre­served and re­stored, and if we fol­low the en­gi­neers’ ad­vice, and pull down Mille Fleurs be­cause it had gone be­yond re­cov­ery, is it that we can tell our chil­dren that we were too poor, things were too hard, so we were not able to save these trea­sures?”

Row­ley laud­ed the col­lec­tion of art which was do­nat­ed from the Cen­tral Bank and First Cit­i­zens’ vast col­lec­tions.

“On this oc­ca­sion, where we are 60 years old as a na­tion, these trea­sures are our best rep­re­sen­ta­tion of six decades of the na­tion­hood that we were promised in 1962,” Row­ley said.

He said the ex­hibits so far have been hid­den be­hind the bushels of the doors of the Cen­tral Bank and First Cit­i­zens. He said it was a pity that the av­er­age per­son on the av­er­age day does not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty just to see and in­ter­act with the pow­er of these works.

He said, “Be­cause if they are able to, pride and pa­tri­o­tism will arise au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, if not with all the pieces, but some of the pieces will ap­peal to us and a bet­ter cit­i­zen would arise from the gaze of these pieces”

He en­cour­aged teach­ers to take their stu­dents to see the ex­hibits when school re­opens.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hillaire, who al­so spoke at the event, laud­ed the col­lec­tion of paint­ings from lo­cal artists from the bank’s decades of art ac­qui­si­tions.

“The Cen­tral Bank has al­ways been a cham­pi­on and sup­port­er of the vi­su­al arts and oth­er art forms in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have an ex­ten­sive art col­lec­tion, some of which we are priv­i­leged to show you to­day. We have an art book, we have ex­hibits that we run pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly with lo­cal artists,” Dr Hillaire said.

The ex­hib­it runs from Au­gust 25 to Sep­tem­ber 23 at White­hall Tues­day to Sat­ur­day from 10 am to 6 pm and Sun­days from 2 pm to 6 pm.