Renu­ka Singh

The new Bal­isi­er House, cost­ing be­tween $12.5 mil­lion and $25 mil­lion, will be fund­ed strict­ly by fund-rais­ing ef­forts with­in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­stituen­cies.

One of the deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers yes­ter­day pegged the cost for the new five-storey struc­ture be­tween $500 and $1,000 per square foot. The build­ing is ex­pect­ed to be 25,000 square foot when com­plet­ed.

Ro­han Sinanan, the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter, said that de­spite the neg­a­tive com­ments and ques­tions about where the par­ty would get the mon­ey to start the work, the PNM had been rais­ing funds for the past two years for this project.

“We have been hav­ing fund-rais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, like boat cruis­es and oth­er ef­forts, for the past two years for this project,” Sinanan said.

“I am con­fi­dent that the mem­ber­ship will be able to com­plete­ly fund this new build­ing be­cause of what Bal­isi­er House means to the peo­ple of the PNM,” he said.

“Fund-rais­ing ef­forts will con­tin­ue un­til the build­ing is com­plete,” he said.

The sod was turned on the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar PNM head­quar­ters dur­ing a free cool­er fete at the Bal­isi­er House com­pound on Thurs­day.

Both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and par­ty chair­man, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan turned the cer­e­mo­ni­al sod, a lay­er of sand in a red box, to mark the start of the project.

One of the high­lights of the fete was the first three-car give-away of a 10-car raf­fle, pro­ceeds from which go to­ward the con­struc­tion of the new build­ing.

The struc­ture, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed at the event, is ex­pect­ed to be five storeys high and ac­com­mo­date base­ment park­ing. The ex­ist­ing, his­tor­i­cal Bal­isi­er House will be re­fur­bished and kept as a mu­se­um and li­brary ded­i­cat­ed to all things PNM.

The con­struc­tion was giv­en a two-year time frame for com­ple­tion.

The ten car give­away in­cludes nine Hon­da City CNG ve­hi­cles and a grand prize of a BMW sedan.