Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Week­ly Cab­i­net meet­ings of­fi­cial­ly re­sumed yes­ter­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, which has been “cleaned up,” ac­cord­ing to Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Nicholas Mor­ris.

Mor­ris host­ed the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the cen­tre, which had not been used for such pur­pos­es since the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment’s tenure.

The new­ly elect­ed UNC Gov­ern­ment had ini­tial­ly opt­ed to hold Cab­i­net meet­ings and brief­in­gs at the Red House, cit­ing the poor state of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre.

How­ev­er, the fa­cil­i­ty was re­cent­ly re­fur­bished by UDe­COTT in prepa­ra­tion for the of­fi­cial re­cep­tion held in ho­n­our of In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di.

The up­grad­ed press room now fea­tures a re­designed head ta­ble in the na­tion­al colours, where fea­tured min­is­ters sat dur­ing yes­ter­day’s brief­ing, along with new fur­nish­ings for the me­dia area.

“As you can see, we’re in some very love­ly sur­round­ings,” Mor­ris said.

“As this Gov­ern­ment has been do­ing across the coun­try, we have en­gaged in a na­tion­al cam­paign to fix our in­sti­tu­tions, our laws, and our so­ci­ety. I think this (Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre) is a clear demon­stra­tion of our com­mit­ment to clean up what we met.”

He praised the ef­forts of the new UDe­COTT team and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, cred­it­ing them for the trans­for­ma­tion of the premis­es.

“What we saw here at the start of our term was very, very de­plorable,” he said.

“To­day, what you’re see­ing is an en­vi­ron­ment that has been cleaned up and re­stored— in keep­ing with our man­date to en­sure na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic spaces are main­tained in the best con­di­tion for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This be­longs to the peo­ple.”

When asked whether the en­tire com­pound is now ful­ly op­er­a­tional, Mor­ris replied: “It’s get­ting there, but that’s a ques­tion best an­swered by the UDe­COTT team and the Min­is­ter.”

Re­gard­ing when the Prime Min­is­ter will move in­to the of­fi­cial res­i­dence lo­cat­ed next to the cen­tre, Mor­ris said: “Those ques­tions will be ad­dressed in due time by the Prime Min­is­ter.”