Two hun­dred peo­ple have won the ho­n­our of tour­ing Pres­i­dent’s House, fol­low­ing a lot­tery draw which was tele­vised live yes­ter­day.

Co­me­di­an Er­rol Fa­bi­en host­ed the 25-minute draw, which was shown on TTT.

Dur­ing the draw, it was re­vealed that 732 per­sons of­fered en­tries in­to the lot­tery, which was an­nounced by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes dur­ing her Christ­mas ad­dress to the na­tion.

There had been crit­i­cism of the Pres­i­dent’s move to have cit­i­zens take part in the lot­tery for a chance to tour the res­i­dence, with some all cit­i­zens should be al­lowed ac­cess for a small main­te­nance or up­keep fee.

Pres­i­dent’s House was re­opened on De­cem­ber 17, 2019, af­ter be­ing closed for close to a decade when a roof col­lapsed in May 2010.

Avonelle Kei­th, Kent Samp­son and Na­dia Mo­hammed were the first three per­sons se­lect­ed in the draw.

How­ev­er, host Fa­bi­en ad­vised that be­ing se­lect­ed did not guar­an­tee them ac­cess to Pres­i­dent’s House.

‘“We still have to do back­ground checks on you,’ said Fa­bi­en, “We are not send­ing trans­porta­tion for you. You have to sup­ply your own trans­port. When you win, you have to come your­self. If you think you can trans­fer to your neigh­bour, no, you can’t do that and you must be on time.”

Pres­i­dent’s House was for­mal­ly re­opened on De­cem­ber 17, 2019, af­ter it was re­stored.

The build­ing had not been in use since part of its roof col­lapsed be­fore the May 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The ren­o­va­tion cost an es­ti­mat­ed $89 mil­lion.