Yvonne Ba­boolal

Some $51 mil­lion has been forked out by the T&T Gov­ern­ment to con­struct the North and Grand Stands at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for Car­ni­val 2011. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly $11 mil­lion has been spent on the North Stand, which is now fin­ished, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man, Ken­ny de Sil­va, said yes­ter­day. Con­trac­tors took five-and-a-half weeks to com­plete the struc­ture, which has been re­con­struct­ed in ba­si­cal­ly the same "foot­prints" as the orig­i­nal North Stand, De Sil­va said. "It's the same size. We've re­built it in ba­si­cal­ly the same foot­prints," he added.

The North Stand can seat 8,000, like be­fore, but for the up­com­ing Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nals, can hold 11,000 stand­ing. The Grand Stand, about 95 per cent com­plet­ed, and which will be fin­ished by week­end, cost some $40 mil­lion in tax­pay­ers' mon­ey. The seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty of the struc­ture, a lot big­ger now, has been in­creased by 6,800. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the Grand Stand held 4,700 peo­ple and it can now hold 11,500, De Sil­va said. There were al­so struc­tur­al ad­just­ments.

"The an­gle of the Grand Stand is now di­ag­o­nal, so wher­ev­er you sit, fac­ing East or West, you have a good vi­sion of the stage. You don't have to turn," he added. Both stands will be opened next week.

Work on the struc­tures, which will be on­go­ing, in­clud­ed main­tain­ing the green­ery around the fa­cil­i­ties to get back the sooth­ing pris­tine look of the Sa­van­nah, De Sil­va said, em­pha­sis­ing one of his main goals.

He said the NCC planned to put a Car­ni­val mu­se­um, Car­ni­val in­sti­tute, and the NCC of­fice in the area, which would save the Gov­ern­ment a lot of rent. He said the ul­ti­mate aim was to have a Car­ni­val cen­tre in the Sa­van­nah and to rent the fa­cil­i­ties to pro­mot­ers for fetes and shows and so bring in prof­its for the Gov­ern­ment.