Gail Alexan­der

?The new struc­ture be­ing built on the com­pound of the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fi­cial res­i­dence is an out­door stage–and not a "con­cert hall" –and is go­ing to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $10 mil­lion, Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day. Speak­ing at the Gov­ern­ment's week­ly me­dia brief­ing, Im­bert said: "I have been giv­en a fig­ure but I'm not sure how ac­cu­rate the fig­ure is. If it is ac­cu­rate then it's cer­tain­ly val­ue for mon­ey. I was told it is go­ing to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $10 mil­lion. If that is true, from the size of what I'm see­ing there, it is way be­low mar­ket rate."

He said he was told the struc­ture would be com­plet­ed by year-end. "By the way it's an out­door fa­cil­i­ty," he said. "I've heard it's been re­ferred to by some­one as a con­cert hall. I don't know where you all got that from, but you all are very cre­ative. The me­dia in T&T is very cre­ative–it is an out­door stage. It's a stage that al­lows for per­for­mances to be done out­doors." Ad­join­ing the stage on the St Ann's com­pound are the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre and the PM's of­fi­cial res­i­dence build­ing. Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's own res­i­dence–he has said in Par­lia­ment - is in Vista­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do.