RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

From to­mor­row the new­ly re­fur­bished Bal­isi­er House will be opened to the pub­lic for par­ty busi­ness.

So said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings who was de­liv­er­ing the re­marks at yes­ter­day’s re­open­ing of Bal­isi­er House and the par­ty’ 68th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

Bal­isi­er House was re­opened in fine style with the un­veil­ing of a plaque and place­ment of a time cap­sule.

Asked what was the over­all cost of such a lav­ish re­fur­bish­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who ad­dressed mem­bers of the me­dia dur­ing a tour of his styl­ish ex­ec­u­tive of­fice, said al­though there was a bud­get, they had sur­passed it for the fin­ish­ing touch­es. He said the cost would be re­vealed at the PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 24.

“It’s not cheap. I don’t have a fig­ure yet, even­tu­al­ly, those who han­dled the fig­ures would re­port to the gen­er­al coun­cil, but I don’t have an idea of the fig­ure be­cause it is some­thing we have been work­ing on for a long time and the re­ports have not come in yet.

“We had planned to open this build­ing last year af­ter the COVID dis­rup­tions. We got some set­backs and we kept hav­ing to read­just our po­si­tion, but in terms of how we were able to do it, I can tell you we start­ed with some small do­na­tions from par­ty mem­bers and reg­u­lar bene­fac­tors, but that could not have re­al­ly pushed a bud­get of the scale and, of course, we did at the same time, we had the new build­ing go­ing up next door but we kept sep­a­rate ac­counts. The ac­counts that did this ren­o­va­tion are not mixed with the one over there. This one is an ac­count that goes back about 12 years,” he added.

A mul­ti-storey struc­ture is be­ing built by the par­ty next door.

Asked if he would be dis­clos­ing the donors who helped in rais­ing the mon­ey, Row­ley replied, “We are not go­ing to be dis­clos­ing our pub­lic fi­nanciers. We have nev­er dis­closed our pub­lic fi­nanciers be­cause I know that there are those out there who will try to take all kinds of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and ‘Nan­cy sto­ries. We ig­nore those peo­ple. We have a gen­er­al coun­cil, we have a trea­sur­er, we have a do­na­tion com­mit­tee which I chair, and that is in our con­sti­tu­tion.”

PNM stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira, 91, in an in­ter­view with the Guardian Me­dia, dis­closed that back in the day, that par­cel of land where Bal­isi­er House i lo­cat­ed cost be­tween $150,000 to $180,000, “I know how much we paid for the par­cel of land next door where the mul­ti-storey build­ing is be­ing con­struct­ed, and that cost $200,000.”

In Oc­to­ber 2021, Bal­isi­er House’s roof was re­moved dur­ing the rainy sea­son and the build­ing was left ex­posed to pos­si­ble wa­ter dam­age. The restoraa­tion project start­ed short­ly af­ter.

In April 2023, MP for Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles MP called on Row­ley to re­lease the list of donors fund­ing the Bal­isi­er House project.

Charles called on the Gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise two pieces of leg­is­la­tion that will stop al­le­ga­tions such as those be­ing made against Bal­isi­er House fund­ing–com­pre­hen­sive Pro­cure­ment Leg­is­la­tion and Cam­paign Fi­nance Re­form.